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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND 
THE RESURRECTION 



OTHER WORKS BY 


PROF. JAMES H. HYSLOP 


BORDERLAND OF PSYCHICAL 


RESEARCH 


$1.50 net; by mail $1.62 


ENIGMAS OF PSYCHICAL 


RESEARCH 


$1.50 net; by mail $1.62 


SCIENCE AND A FUTURE LIFE 


$1.50 net; by mail $1.62 


SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 


15 BEACON ST., BOSTON 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 
AND THE RESURRECTION 



BY 



JAMES H. HYSLOP, Ph.D., LL.D. 

FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF ETHICS AND 
LOGIC IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 



f 



SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY 
BOSTON - - - MCMVIII 






Copyright, 1908 
Small, /lBa£nar£> & Company 

( INCORPORATED ) 

Entered at Stationers' Hall 



Published, May, 1908 



LIBRARY of OijN«ci £S3 1 
Two Oopi»s Heceivav 

JUN 15 1908 



i 



THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED 
TO 

flD£ Gbflfcren, 

WHO WILL SOME DAY SEE THE LIGHT 



PREFACE 

The present volume contains a number of essays 
relating to the subjects discussed in three previous 
volumes, Borderland of Psychical Research, Enigmas 
of Psychical Research, and Science and a Future 
Life. The matter is largely new. Two of the es- 
says — the first and the last — have not been pub- 
lished before. The others have been collected from 
various periodicals in which they first received publi- 
cation. 

The first-named of the volumes previously pub- 
lished deals with the phenomena of normal psychology 
and its problems and with some of the borderline facts 
of abnormal psychology. It includes chapters on 
sense perception, memory, illusions, hallucinations, 
subconscious action, pseudo-spiritistic phenomena, 
hypnotic therapeutics, and reincarnation. The sec- 
ond discusses crystal gazing, telepathy, clairvoyance, 
premonition and mediumistic phenomena. The third 
is a summary of the facts associated with the experi- 
ments of Dr. Hodgson and others in connection with 
the case of Mrs. Piper. The present volume covers 
more or less of the whole field and may be regarded 
as a supplement to Science and a Future Life, with 
conclusions quite the same. They all deal with a 
residual class of phenomena now demanding more and 
more attention and suggesting a wider range of 



PREFACE 



meaning for human personality than the orthodox 
psychology has been disposed to admit. It is hoped 
that these essays may help to shed some light on the 
problems involved. 

There is no class of phenomena that have a greater 
interest for many persons at the present day than 
those which are attributed to " subliminal conscious- 
ness " or " secondary personality." These terms 
figure so prominently in all discussions of obscure 
problems in psychology, and especially in literature 
which objects to spiritistic theories, that it may be 
well to make clear what they mean. 

To make intelligible what we mean by " secondary 
personality " it may be necessary briefly to indicate 
what we mean by " personality " of any kind. By 
" personality," we mean a group of mental states 
which are continuous and coherent, so that they pres- 
ent a persistent unity and real or apparent identity of 
kind and meaning. In common parlance we might 
call it the mental characteristics of a person, this being 
the name for an individual organism and its functions 
as a whole. But the mental peculiarities which main- 
tain a continuous and persistent unity throughout 
the life of this person or individual, or at least for 
definite periods of time, are called its " personality," 
and in the normal man persist through his whole 
life. This is called the " primary personality." But 
in certain not altogether normal conditions the in- 
dividual may exhibit mental actions which simulate 
some other " personality," or " person " if we may 
so call it, and betray no memory connections with the 
primary consciousness. This we call a " secondary 

x 



PREFACE 



personality." It begins in the ordinary subconscious 
action, which in the normal man accompanies the 
natural consciousness. Many of our actions are sub- 
conscious or carried on unconsciously and without 
set purpose. If these actions lose their relation to 
our ordinary control and become split off from the 
influence of the normal consciousness they become 
organized into a consistent imitation of another " per- 
son " and are called the " secondary " consciousness 
or " personality." In such cases there is no connec- 
tion by memory between secondary consciousness and 
the normal consciousness, any more than there is be- 
tween two different individuals. They may show 
that they belong to the same group of experiences 
by the fact that each " personality " may recall the 
same facts, indicating that the secondary conscious- 
ness has its own memory, but there is no memory by 
each of the other's facts. 

In all the phenomena of psychical research there 
is good reason to believe that subliminal or subcon- 
scious mental action is the medium through which 
these phenomena are produced, and it is the task of 
the investigator to determine when the phenomena 
are, and when they are not, the result of the individ- 
ual's normal experience or sense perception. The 
place that this has in the production of them has not 
yet been clearly indicated and it may take a long 
and tedious investigation to determine the point. At 
present there are no definitely assigned limits to sub- 
liminal action, except those facts which can not be 
explained by previous normal sense perception. 
There are types of phenomena which clearly indicate 

xi 



PREFACE 

this subconscious action, such as dreams, deliria, 
sleep-walking, and all cases of temporary loss of the 
sense of personal identity. But we seem to transcend 
this in mediumistic phenomena and telepathy where, 
whatever the functions of subliminal action, we ob- 
tain information in some ordinarily inexplicable way 
outside the subject in which it occurs, representing 
the personality or mental state of some one else. 
Secondary personality may be the condition of get- 
ting such " messages " and so serve as the matrix 
into which they are poured. But whether so or not, 
it is not the place in a preface to explain it. All 
that it is necessary to do here is to define the inter- 
mediate mental conditions affecting the supernormal 
and perhaps serving as the medium for its expres- 
sion. 

Many persons imagine that " secondary personal- 
ity " means some extraneous reality or double which 
is as independent as a real person. But this is not 
its meaning in scientific psychology. In no respect 
is it a competitor in the explanation of spiritistic 
phenomena having a supernormal character. It 
readily explains the simulations of spiritism, but 
since it is itself based upon the normal experience of 
the individual dissociated from the normal memory, 
it does not imply anything foreign to the organism 
and explains nothing but the appearances of exter- 
nal realities, if it can be said to explain anything at 
all. It represents phenomena as much within the sub- 
ject as does the primary personality. But it may 
nevertheless be the means by which foreign influences 

xii 



PREFACE 

may be able to intromit " messages " into the phys- 
ical world, whether those influences be telepathic or 
spiritual. 

The first of the three books before-mentioned deals 
with these borderline phenomena; the second shows 
a large group of phenomena not amenable to sub- 
liminal explanations alone; and the third deals with 
information that consistently represents the person- 
alities of deceased persons. The present volume adds 
to the data which cover all three fields of inquiry. 
The chapters detailing the " communications " pur- 
porting to come from Dr. Hodgson represent, in 
some cases, a series of phenomena that we are in the 
habit of calling " cross references." This means 
" messages " that are repeated through different 
psychical subjects. They are a peculiarly effective 
evidence of the supernormal, whatever the explana- 
tion. The chapter on " Visions of the Dying " rep- 
resents another type of phenomena scarcely less 
significant, though not so easily determined by ex- 
periments as are mediumistic incidents. 

The province and limitations of telepathy are ex- 
plained in the chapter on that subject and I do not 
need to dwell upon it here. Suffice it to say that 
many persons have most extravagant conceptions of 
what it is supposed to be. But for science it is a 
very rare phenomenon and has far greater limita- 
tions than the public imagines. It is merely a name 
for a group of facts, not for any explanatory process 
regarding them. If the public exhibited any ra- 
tional ideas about this matter, science might be more 

xiii 



PREFACE 



willing to take it up for serious investigation. But 
nothing can be done with it until the subject is 
looked at reasonably. 

The phenomena still accumulate, and increase the 
duties of science to investigate and interpret them. 
There are growing signs that intelligent men see 
that a new world of facts promises to open to human 
vision and interest, and only self-complacent dog- 
matists any longer ridicule the subject. As these 
men die, their places will be taken by a younger gen- 
eration that has no prejudices to maintain. We have 
only to exercise patience until the victory has been 
won, though it is unfortunate that we are not al- 
lowed to discuss the issues which are involved while 
accumulating the facts which are to decide it. A bet- 
ter day will soon arrive for this discussion and the 
next generation will treat the intolerance of the pres- 
ent as we treat the attacks on Copernican astronomy 
and Darwinian evolution. We only await sufficient 
intelligence to endow the investigation when it may 
be made commensurate with the immensity of the 
task. 

James H. Hyslop. 
New York City, January 30th, 1908. 



xiv 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. HUMOROUS ASPECTS OF PSYCHICAL RE- 
SEARCH 1 

II. PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND COINCI- 
DENCES 24 

III. " FROM INDIA TO THE PLANET MARS " . 61 

IV. VISIONS OF THE DYING 81 

V. EXPERIMENTS WITH MRS. PIPER SINCE 

DR. RICHARD HODGSON'S DEATH . . .109 
VI. FURTHER EXPERIMENTS RELATING TO 

DR. HODGSON SINCE HIS DEATH . . .127 
VII. CONCLUSION OF EXPERIMENTS REL- 
ATIVE TO DR. HODGSON ; THEORIES . . 159 

VIII. THE SMEAD CASE 222 

IX. SOME FEATURES IN MEDIUMISTIC PHE- 
NOMENA 268 

X. TELEPATHY 305 

XI. THE NATURE OF LIFE AFTER DEATH . . 332 

XII. PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESUR- 

RECTION .... 352 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE 
RESURRECTION 

CHAPTER I 

HUMOROUS ASPECTS OF PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 

So many fools have been made wise and so many 
wise men made fools in the study of phenomena 
having an alleged significance for supernormal knowl- 
edge and transcendental forces that the subject has 
a great many humorous aspects for one who sees 
much of human nature. The whole history of the 
subject has connected it with promises that perhaps 
have more personal interest for the majority of the 
race than any other problem. Expectation in regard 
to it has not only defied prejudice and scientific dog- 
matism but has been enhanced by the marvellous 
achievements of discovery and invention. The prog- 
ress of the physical sciences with their speculations 
on the existence of invisible physical forces has broken 
down the old standards of belief and left the average 
man with imaginative possibilities that even the an- 
tagonism to the supernatural cannot wholly overcome. 
The consequence is that we are all in a situation which 
prevents us from denying the possibility of anything 
or everything and leaves us at the mercy of every 
one who asks for no other credentials for belief than 
the impossibility of denial. Between credulity and 
moral earnestness on the one hand and intelligence 

1 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

and emasculated dogmatism on the other we have an 
opportunity for as much amusement as science. The 
cranks who have no sense of humor make good targets 
for ridicule while the scientists who love to dispense 
this contempt are reduced to the extremity of ignor- 
ing facts to save the reputation of their theories. 
Between them lies the every day practical man of 
the world who wants to be on the side of intelligence 
and to indulge his contempt for folly, but does not 
know how to distinguish intelligently the occasions 
for the display of a discreet knowledge from those 
which justify the use of sarcasm. The indiscriminate 
medley of people that is mixed in with all these 
classes make up a world that may well offer an inter- 
esting field for Puck or Punch. 

In the study of psychical research the class which 
perhaps excites the most animosity and amusement 
is the spiritualist. To me the most interesting char- 
acteristic of the enthusiasts in this creed is their utter 
lack of the sense of humor when discussing their phe- 
nomena and theories. Their doctrine in this respect is 
too much like a religion to escape being serious. 
Whatever humor or fun has ever attached itself to 
religious matters has always to hide itself in secrecy 
and appears only when the priest is off parade. This 
is perhaps inevitable with all matters which must 
be taken so seriously. But Spiritualism is such an 
incongruous mixture of science and religion that a 
very rare and elastic mental temperament is required 
rightly to adjust the balance between seriousness and 
contempt in the estimation of it. One has only to 
witness a spiritualistic meeting to see and feel this. 



HUMOROUS ASPECTS OF PSYCHICAL, RESEARCH 

An intelligent and well-balanced spectator of its per- 
formances must sacrifice his sense of humor if he 
tries to be serious and must possess a great deal of 
charity if he succeeds in suppressing his contempt. 
Take a performance in which some alleged " medium " 
makes wry faces, as if in a trance, and tells some 
naive person in the audience that a spirit standing 
by him predicts that he will succeed in the oyster 
business and see this followed by the announcement 
of a hymn sung with the most solemn gravity or 
ecstatic enthusiasm, and if a man of the world re- 
strains a smile he has more of divine pity than he is 
usually accredited with. To witness the conjunction 
of a prayer with the abnormal deliverances of some 
alleged spirit on the intellectual level of the ravings 
of Ludovick Muggleton and George Fox arouses 
strange emotions in the minds of men accustomed to 
the more sedate proprieties of religion and sober life. 
It is true that a healthy cynic can see much that is 
ridiculous in any of our solemn performances. It is 
use and custom that hide the absurd in much that 
passes for important and serious. The average spir- 
itualist is not the only person who fails to appreciate 
the funny side of things supposed to be serious. The 
same defect appears in almost every sanctity, so 
small is the distance from the sublime to the ridicu- 
lous. We would ridicule the habit of bowing when 
the name of the president is mentioned, but we expect 
to pacify an angry Deity by obeisance to the name 
of his son. We can solemnly go through the ritual 
and put on long faces as we listen to some sermon 
holding before us the menace of eternal damnation 

3 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

for not believing that two and two make five and 
then, supposing that our reverent moods have atoned 
for our sins, forget all this at a dinner of roast 
turkey and a bottle of claret and a drive in Central 
Park. There is nothing like a fit of emotional in- 
temperance for clarifying the conscience. 

There is a curious situation for the scientist in 
the pathetic condition of those who are seeking con- 
solation in some escape from the stoical faith of scep- 
ticism. They have abandoned their belief in ortho- 
doxy, whether from choice or necessity, and yet are 
determined by hook or by crook to believe in a future 
life, and having professed a faith in science must 
seek some fact or alleged fact to simulate the method 
and credentials of that form of knowledge. If once 
they have secured some plausible or apparent fact to 
which to cling in their hopes, they abandon all sense 
of humor and assume an attitude of assurance, with 
its accompanying state of consolation, which it is 
impossible to move. To them it appears an act of 
cruelty to tell them the truth if it tends to suggest 
a doubt. Having once cherished doubt as their sal- 
vation they turn on it now as an arch enemy, and 
the scientist can only quote the maxim of Kant, that 
there are stories which human courtesy makes it 
impossible to investigate. There is no mental atti- 
tude so funny as that which disguises the search for 
hope and consolation by the pretensions of science. 
It is funny, not because it is illegitimate, but because 
it wants too frequently the attribute of courage, and 
tries to secure respectability under a garb whose 
genuineness it is not willing to test. The only sal- 

4 



HUMOROUS ASPECTS OF PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 

vation of this class is the recovery of a sense of 
humor. This characteristic was the beginning of 
civilization. The monkey and the ape are cases of 
arrested development simply because they lacked this 
quality. If monkeys could smile when they play 
practical jokes on each other there might be some 
hope of their becoming intelligent and civilized. The 
average spiritualist who gets his faith and consola- 
tion in performances like those at Lily Dale and On- 
set reminds one of the Darwinian doctrine of the re- 
version to primitive types. I am not saying that there 
is nothing genuine in such places, as I have no scien- 
tific facts to justify dogmatism in this matter. But 
I am assured that even truth has its humorous aspects, 
and what strikes me as psychologically interesting in 
various missionary classes of the genus homo is the 
inability to appreciate the humorous aspects of the 
seriousness and gravity with which certain trivial and 
dubious facts are treated. Puns are sometimes very 
funny, but a scientific treatise on them would be still 
funnier. I understand the claims to seriousness in 
these trivial phenomena, but I cannot restrain a 
laugh when I measure their character against what 
custom has agreed to treat as really important and 
when I find myself cornered by scepticism. Of course 
spiritualism can be treated seriously, but so can 
prestidigitation. But when legerdemain, fraud and 
spiritualism show decided resemblances in their phe- 
nomena I must be pardoned not only for my doubts, 
but also for the retention of my sense of humor. 

The class which I have just considered are in search 
of hope and consolation. But there is a class which 

5 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

claims to have them but which nevertheless betrays 
a curious mental condition regarding psychical re- 
search. When it is not afraid of disturbing its 
orthodoxy it is chiefly interested in the conditions 
of life in a future existence and shows no interest 
in the strictly scientific problem, but at once plies 
questions regarding the mode of life involved. A 
Calvinist who has to depend on grace for hope and 
is not sure that he is the favorite of that grace may 
well feel anxious about his future if he has Jonathan 
Edward's doctrine of eternal punishment to face. 
Any other sinner who is afraid that he is actually 
going to get his deserts may want some hope of 
escape as he generally tries to avoid the consequences 
of his crime in this life. Relief from fear and the 
hope of happiness, or escape from the just deserts 
of one's actions, is the usual incentive to curiosity 
on this point, and unfortunately the scientific man 
has to show Kant's (not scant) courtesy to this class 
because he hopes to get from it an endowment for his 
investigations. If only he could safely tell them that 
they deserved to be boiled in Milton's marl of burn- 
ing sulphur awhile and then be annihilated he might 
satisfy both his humor and his malice. But then 
in addition to the strange spectacle of asking for un- 
verifiable statements as a basis for hope and consola- 
tion or immunity from the consequences of folly, 
irony and truth-telling may tighten the purse strings 
of benevolence and scientific curiosity and we have 
to play the tactful part of Mephistopheles in order 
to secure any favors at all. 

Then there is the large class made up of the aver- 
6 



HUMOROUS ASPECTS OF PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 

age religious person, the scientific Philistine, and a 
goodly portion of the so-called intelligent public, 
which thinks that spirits in their high estate would 
never interest themselves in such trivial matters as 
purport to come from them in our alleged " communi- 
cations." But it never occurs to this class to observe 
the conversation that goes on at a Columbia College 
tea, for instance. I had a colleague who stands high 
in the ranks of science and who thinks it absurd that 
a spirit would talk about a jack knife, but in a 
social reception of dignitaries his share in the bad- 
inage and small talk would hardly distinguish him 
from a bootblack or street gamin except that his 
dialect is not the same as Chimmie Fadden's. Puns, 
jokes, trivialities are all very nice if they are not 
the speech of spirits. Even scepticism cannot doubt 
the solemnity of a transcendental life. The fact is, 
however, that we are wont to adjudge that serious 
and important which is either of a religious char- 
acter or connected with the employments which give 
us our bread or fame. We are very sober and sol- 
emn when we read our papers on a scientific subject 
when all the incidencts are as trivial as anything 
ever attributed to an idiotic ghost, and when we 
are put at the end of a telegraph or telephone line 
to prove our identity we spontaneously select the 
trivial to identify ourselves and then wonder and 
laugh at the degeneracy of spirits! We should re- 
member, however, that we always estimate a thing 
by its relation to our pleasures, so that we look 
grave and call a fact important when we are talking 
science and philosophy and call it trivial when we 

7 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

wish to laugh about it. We have to put conscience 
and gravity into some things when our bread and 
fame are concerned, but we relax our scientific spirit 
when we do not understand a subject sufficiently to 
distinguish between its serious and humorous inci- 
dents. We expect to prove our sanity by laughing 
where we are ignorant. When we do not wish to 
be bored we can laugh down the missionary who is 
resolved to save our souls at the expense of our sense 
of humor. The case resolves itself into this. When 
one party determines to be serious the other wants 
to be funny, and vice versa. It is a question of 
respectability on the one hand and indifference to 
the public on the other, and neither party can pool 
its issues without attempting an incongruous mix- 
ture of a smile and a tear. The trivial of one is 
the important of the other, and social respectability 
is the primary consideration of the one while Mr. 
Vanderbilt's opinion is the maxim of the other. The 
cynic can have his fun with both. 

Some personal incidents may have an interest for 
the reader. Soon after presenting a paper on the 
Piper case in which I defended the spiritistic hy- 
pothesis I received a letter from a lady in a neigh- 
boring state saying that she had recently lost a 
little son by death. The doctor had told her that 
his heart had stopped beating, and he was buried 
in a vault, and as she had heard from the newspapers 
that I could raise the dead she wished that I would 
be so kind as to restore her son to life. She was 
willing to do much for me if I did. But I was too 
busy at the time with the more important work of 

8 



HUMOROUS ASPECTS OP PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 

talking to students to resuscitate anybody's heart- 
beat, and I suppose that boy is still dead. The inci- 
dent is, of course, more pathetic than it is funny, but 
I fear that the poor woman's impression as learned 
from the newspapers was quite pardonable. That 
craft seems never to get any nearer the truth than 
this poor woman. Anything could be believed if 
newspaper accounts were reliable. The amusing part 
of the editorial profession of the sensational kind is 
the assumption of its intelligence. Men whose only 
title to recognition is their financial success in pan- 
dering to the appetite for divorce scandals and 
political lying somehow suppose that they can de- 
scribe and discuss all manner of questions. One of 
them in reviewing his life is said to have remarked 
to a friend that in his earlier career he had tried 
morality (Brook Farm) and failed and then tried 
the part of Mephistopheles and found that he had 
succeeded. 

Here are two incidents associated with editors of 
a somewhat different type who could be expected to 
have an interest which the writer for the secular 
journals might not have. 

The editor of one of the widely circulated religious 
weeklies had apparently been interested in psychical 
research for years. He had accepted articles from 
me and others on the subject for ten or more years, 
and had boasted to me personally that his paper had 
stood up for our work. He has actually solicited 
papers from me and others on this question, and 
hence presuming that he would be willing to help 
along the project of securing financial aid for such 

9 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

investigations I recently approached him to support 
the plan by some editorial suggestions without any 
committal to theories of any kind. The man looked 
at me in bewilderment as if to say, " Psychical re- 
search, psychical research, what is that? " Recover- 
ing his recollections he suddenly knit his eyebrows 
and exclaimed : " Oh, yes ! Wasn't it a Mrs. Piper 
who gave some silly stuff that was said to be com- 
munications from spirits some time ago? " I replied, 
" Yes, and its silliness is the strongest part of our 
argument." He was somewhat abashed at this audac- 
ity, but the interesting part of it to me, besides my 
own plight, was the editor's real and complete indif- 
ference to the whole subject in spite of his years of 
apparent interest in it. His real concern when his 
day's duties are over is Babylonian antiquities ! Here 
is a man whom the public would suppose interested in 
all matters affecting the fundamentals of religion, 
but who in fact simply takes advantage of a popular 
appetite for articles on various topics of a religious, 
political, literary and scientific character to gain the 
facility for retiring to his library where he may 
spend his hours on cuneiform inscriptions and prob- 
lems bordering on the region of mythology! Prob- 
lems connected with the possible question of a future 
life were indeed worth a passing notice, especially 
if the public demanded an article on them, but they 
are nothing compared with those associated with the 
" higher criticism " which is taking the underpinning 
from the very interest which he was supposed to 
support and could only coddle for its remunerative 
advantages. Whatever there may be of the serious 

10 



HUMOROUS ASPECTS OF PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 

in this it is certainly quite as amusing, and a psychical 
researcher with a sense of humor would have to laugh 
at the discomfiture which he meets at the hands of 
supposed friends, who in reality are merely interested 
in exploiting him for some concealed and collateral 
object. 

The editor of the rival religious weekly to which 
I have just referred was the pastor of a large met- 
ropolitan church and resigned from it to devote his 
whole time to editorial duties. He has been of the 
rationalistic temperament and has accepted the prin- 
ciples of the " higher criticism " which effectually 
undermines the whole popular system of Christianity 
and shows that there is not one iota of rational 
evidence for many of the most essential doctrines of 
religion. Apparently this editor felt this, for after 
I had delivered my address on the Piper case and 
the newspapers had given their wonderful version 
of the affair, he sent for me to lunch with him and 
talk the matter over. I did so and he was much 
interested apparently in the problem and the facts 
supposed to bear upon it. I was careful to tell him 
that he could form no intelligent opinion from what 
we had talked about over a lunch and that he should 
await a full report. He expressed his desire to see 
it when published. As soon as it was out, remember- 
ing my promise, I sent him a copy of my Report. 
Some months after I called upon him for the same 
purpose that moved me in the interview with the 
editor previously mentioned. I asked this purveyor 
of the world's weekly outlook who had been so anxious 
to see my Report if he had received it. He said that 

11 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH A>JD THE RESURRECTION 

he had not. I told him that I had sent it to him, and 
on scratching his head his memory vaguely recalled 
that something of the kind had come to him. After 
a little more scratching he felt quite certain that he 
had received it, but remarked that he had not looked 
at it ! ! I managed to face the embarrassing situation 
and to approach the subject for which I came to ask 
assistance, and to anticipate the first objection which 
most men raise in the consideration of our problem, I 
remarked that he would probably have to meet the 
question of triviality in his reading of the Report and 
that this was the strongest point in our theory instead 
of being an objection. His immediate reply was: 
" Do you think it is worth while continuing the inves- 
tigation when the communications are so trivial? " 
And this just after I had remarked that this fact was 
our strongest point! Of course there was probably 
a difference of opinion lurking behind this evasion of 
my issue, but what interested me most was the un- 
conscious assumption on his part that we ought to 
have some important revelation perhaps of the con- 
ditions of existence after death, as if he had some 
scruples about the future consequences of his aban- 
donment of the ministry. What visions of Dante's 
Inferno must pass through the minds of men who 
want to know whether spirits are happy or not. 
The more I see of them the more I think they deserve 
all they fear, and I am quite willing to endure all 
sorts of embarrassments and humilities if only I can 
secure a correct estimate of human nature and life. 
One thing is clear. When you find it necessary to 
give up orthodoxy it is very important in the struggle 

12 



HUMOROUS ASPECTS 0E PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 

for existence and pursuit of the main chance that 
we should interest ourselves fanatically in the social 
problem, as a most convenient subterfuge under which 
we may protect our property against the avarice of 
the masses. When we cannot control them by the 
hope of a future life and the morality which has 
been associated with it we can counteract the influ- 
ence of the economical ideal which has taken its place 
by diversions of charity and Fabian tactics which 
simply postpone the day of judgment and keep us 
for awhile in the enjoyment of what we call our 
share of the hog's wash. 

A publisher who showed great interest in psychical 
research from the foundation of the Society and who 
has published some volumes of a popular sort on the 
subject quite lost his interest in it when a few mem- 
bers suspected that spiritism might actually explain 
some of the phenomena. He had seen table tipping 
himself and witnessed all sorts of miracles, provided 
one did not choose to believe it was spirits ! ! My Re- 
port had been on his table six months without his 
knowing what it was about, and even then I had to 
call his attention to its nature. The public will have 
to decide whether the joke was on him or myself. It 
will probably laugh at both of us. 

I went to the editor of one of our leading monthly 
magazines to propose an article on an interesting case 
of subconscious mental action. It was without any 
trace of the supernatural in it and I told him so. But 
in spite of this his knowledge of what I had said in 
three articles on psychical research in his magazine 
kept him from seeing the point and he could not im- 

13 



. PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

agine me as thinking of anything but spirits. He 
had himself once been a member of the Society for 
Psychical Research and told me that he had abandoned 
it because it became too scientific for his contribu- 
tions. In the process of time he had become convinced 
that his earlier expectations were not destined to im- 
mediate realization, and on this occasion of my visit to 
talk over an article he undertook to deliver himself of 
his newly acquired convictions as a dictum which gov- 
erned his editorial work in this field. With great 
gravity and dignity, using as slow and deliberate a 
manner as he could, he said : " I have studied this 
subject a great many years and I have finally come 
to the. conclusion that it is all psychological. All 
the wonder that is in it is the wonder of the human 
mind." Here is an editor looking for miracles as a 
condition of being interested in facts at all ! The 
grave proclamation that psychical research was all 
" psychological " was not to be disputed, but the 
condition of impressing the man with any interest 
in facts was that I convince him that they were not 
" psychological " and that I be a vendor of the 
miraculous as the only title to consideration in his 
periodical. It is not the wonderful in this problem 
that gives it its claim to recognition, but it is the 
perfect explicability of its phenomena on a simple 
hypothesis that demands the respect of the sane 
human mind. Neither philosophy nor science is 
founded on the " wonderful," but only superstition 
has such a basis, and the wonder-monger in literature 
playing the role of a scientist to save his respecta- 

14 



HUMOROUS ASPECTS OF PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 

bility hardly conceals an intellectual standard that 
is any better than that of the savage. 

Another instance has much interest. Soon after 
I burned my bridges behind me in my speech on 
psychic research and the spiritistic hypothesis in 
1900 at a meeting in New York, I received a letter 
from a prominent clergyman, one of the leading men 
in the United States, expressing entire confidence in 
my attitude in regard to the investigation. Some 
years later, when endeavoring to secure an endow- 
ment for this research I wrote to him and explained 
my plans to him and he replied with a letter not only 
indicating his sympathy but also saying that he would 
try to obtain the fund and that, if I did not hear 
from him soon, I might infer that he had been unsuc- 
cessful. I wrote saying that my plan was a large 
one and that he had better not do anything until 
he saw me personally and talked over the scheme. 
When I returned to the city he asked me by letter 
to send him the names and indorsements of two or 
three good men of scientific standing. I obtained 
the names of fifteen leading scientific men in the coun- 
try as indorsers of the plan and sent their letters 
to this clergyman with a detailed explanation of the 
scheme. The clergyman's reply was that he was great- 
ly obliged for the opportunity to read the documents, 
but that he did not know any one to whom he could 
appeal for assistance ! His own wife was worth many 
millions, according to the general belief, and the 
clergyman himself was in contact with all the mil- 
lionaires of the eastern part of the country. His 

15 



. PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

interest in spiritual matters was manifested in the 
organization of model saloons. 

In the Ninth Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britan- 
nica there is no article on the " Soul," and none on its 
Immortality. I can understand why these subjects 
should not be mentioned in the reports of the Stock 
Exchange or in railway time tables. But one would 
have thought the Britannica might mention a subject 
on which Plato and Christianity said so much. There 
are, however, seven pages on " Dogs," a thing that 
may not be surprising when we consider that our 
aristocratic classes are more interested in breeding 
dogs than children. Horse racing takes up seven 
pages. On Beer, Whiskey, Wine, and Gin together 
there are twenty-three pages, which is at least one 
recognition of the " spiritual " side of man. No 
wonder a head of the church tried model saloons. 
Whist has five pages, and Abracadabra, Anagrams, 
Astrology and similar things are not forgotten. An- 
atomy has one hundred and nine pages, but not a 
line on that which makes anatomy interesting or im- 
portant. Angling has twelve pages and Apes have 
twenty-one ! The study of our simian ancestry is 
respectable ; of our spiritual destiny it is a mark of in- 
sanity ! 

But I think it is the soi-disant scientist who offers 
as much for amusement as any other class. At a 
recent symposium on the subject of psychical re- 
search and its chief Pythoness one of the participants 
thought that the spiritist had to contend with the 
hypothesis that Mrs. Piper's " subliminal " might be 
the recipient telepathically of all the mental states 

16 



HUMOROUS ASPECTS OF PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 

of any or all people during her lifetime, so that when 
any particular person died she had only in her trance 
state to pick out the proper names and incidents 
to represent any given case of identity. Another 
asserted that " the ether fairly teems with the vibrat- 
ing thoughts of the bygone ages and all that is 
necessary to become possessed of this store of univer- 
sal knowledge is to become sensitive to ether vibra- 
tions, and learn how to translate them into ordinary 
language." 

Far be it from me to deny these claims. I have 
no unscientific prejudice against miracles. I do not 
wish to put myself in a position which may require 
me later to " eat crow." I agree that, if there are 
any such impressions recorded in the ether, all we 
have to do is to become sensitive to them and trans- 
late them into ordinary language, only I am waiting 
for it to be a fait accompli before I take up the 
duties of a missionary for that religion. But what 
strikes one as amusing is the gravity of the assertions 
thus made and the total absence of evidence for them. 
You would think that a man who wanted to be re- 
garded as scientific would give at least an iota of 
evidence for beliefs of this kind which are not even 
put on the plane of possible working hypotheses. 
These men too are always shouting from the house- 
tops while announcing such large creeds that they do 
not believe in the supernatural ! The " supernatural " 
is a Medusa head on which they cannot look and 
live. To them everything is " natural," except spir- 
its. You can believe anything with impunity and 
without evidence provided this something is not a 

17 



. PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

spirit! They may be perfectly right so far as 
I know, but it is certainly a humorous situation to 
have the most exacting demands for evidence made 
of you in the mere testing of hypotheses which you 
do not know whether to believe or not and thus to 
find yourself required to refute theories which do 
not pretend to have evidence in their support and 
which are about as large as anything Jules Verne 
ever imagined. So far as I can see, " science " in 
this procedure is simply any large unverified asser- 
tion which is not in any way associated with the pos- 
sibility of a discarnate human consciousness. Any 
myth, any tradition, any fancy can be accepted 
without a smile of incredulity, if we can succeed 
in escaping from responsibility for evidential obliga- 
tions, and apparently no one has duties of this kind 
but the believer in the possibility of the continuance 
of human consciousness. Faith is said to be the 
Nemesis of scepticism, and so it seems. But here 
it is not religion that has taken refuge in this last 
resource. Spiritism pretends to offer some little evi- 
dence for itself, even if it be very trivial. But 
" science " offers us no other credentials than a simple 
act of faith for Mrs. Piper's telepathic recipience 
of all contemporary states of consciousness, or for the 
infinite record of human thoughts on the ether. This 
may be true, of course, but the situation is one which 
is calculated to provoke one's risibilities, not so much 
for the magnitude of what we are asked to believe 
on either side, as for the gravity with which such 
questions are discussed apart from the presentation 
of evidence, and with an evident fear that we shall 

18 



HUMOROUS ASPECTS OF PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 

be converted to some belief before our neighbor's 
respect will permit. It appears that our denial of 
a doctrine is directly proportioned to our wishes that 
it be true and to the demand for social respectability. 

One man who wants us to take him seriously says: 
" If telepathy, or thought transference, had even the 
slightest microscopic foundation in fact, it would be 
instantly commercialized as a rival of telegraphy, 
telephony, and even the postal service." One may be 
welcome to his opinion of the facts, but if he had only 
said that, if there were any " microscopic " evidence 
for the existence of ghosts, we would use them for our 
locomotives and messenger boys, he might have em- 
phasized the irrelevancy of his remark. Another of- 
fered $1,000 for an instance of telepathy and simply 
sat down in his laboratory to wait for some one to 
come along to convince him. He never thought of 
trying experiments for himself! He was a "scient- 
ist " of the chair ! 

The trouble is that science has taken on all the 
unction and seriousness of religion without the latter's 
ideals, and religion, for the lack of the necessary cre- 
dentials has to mourn, like Hecuba, for the loss of her 
children. 

But just where the situation seems most pathetic 
it becomes comical. Man is an animal that wishes 
to be taken very seriously. Except among the en- 
thusiasts of scientific evolution he systematically tries 
to conceal the humility of his origin while he endeavors 
to play the role of an aristocrat and a demigod. He 
cultivates the manners of a gentleman to purchase 
the respect of his neighbors and indulges the illusion 

19 



. PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

of self-respect to simulate the possession of virtue 
while he has various habits of intemperance which ally 
him to the lowliest of his ancestors. If he can fill 
his stomach and dress himself well without pushing 
others over a precipice, he calls his social order civili- 
zation, but he is vociferous in his maledictions against 
the cosmos if it is not moral enough to satisfy all 
his appetites. But he has a chief end, and he calls 
it an ideal and this is just various enough to conceal 
its meaning. He invents morality and religion either 
to disguise or to redeem his selfishness and hypocrisy. 
He loudly proclaims the importance of life and im- 
mortality and would have you believe that his exist- 
ence in this world has no value without the prospect 
of another, if only he can have it his own way. Even 
the philosopher Kant thought that a future life was 
demanded by the existence of an insatiable duty which 
the conditions of the present life made it impossible 
to realize or obey in full. Thus the center of aspira- 
tion and conduct is placed beyond the grave. But 
how are men in fact interested in it? One wants to 
know if he can continue his cherished pursuits in 
some form and would not be contented unless he could 
enjoy music or poetry: another hopes to escape the 
duties of work, and, like the Greeks who so hated 
" toil and pain," expects to ramble unrestrained in 
the flowery meads of Paradise. One wants to meet 
his wife, but neglects the possibility of meeting his 
neighbor whom he has cheated out of his property ; 
another would appreciate it if he could avoid the 
survival of Turks and Chinamen. The Australian 
savage, admiring the Englishman's complexion and 

20 



HUMOROUS ASPECTS OF PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 

the advantages of his pocketbook, hoped that in the 
resurrection he should wake up a white man and have 
plenty of sixpences. The old Northmen thought that 
the heroes of Valhalla were occupied in hewing down 
shadows which immediately started up again to renew 
their ceaseless and bloodless conflicts. The modern 
religious man, though passionately devoted to demo- 
cratic and republican institutions with their axiom 
of equality, still expresses his ideal in the expectation 
of living in a golden city and bowing and worship- 
ing before the great white throne. But all of these 
expect to treat the future life as a surplus to be 
gained over and above success of some sort in the 
struggle for existence. The rich man whose enjoy- 
ments have been intensified and expanded by his 
wealth, and who has no anxieties except those that 
are the consequences of his vices, hopes, perhaps more 
keenly than the pauper, for the continuance of his 
pleasures, but would not care for another life if it 
brought him duties toward his fellows. In fact I 
find very few people interested in a future life on 
moral or religious grounds. These are only terms 
that try to transfigure a personal interest as various 
as human nature. The primary object of men is 
success in some ambition, and this in most cases is 
material enjoyment and social standing. If a future 
life can come as an additional good to all that can 
be won by hook or crook in business it is welcome 
provided it imposes no duties of a moral or religious 
kind. The successful man wants it as a dividend 
on which his transactions did not count and the un- 
successful man wants it as a compensation for his 

31 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

failure. Between them is a pessimistic class that 
is soured and disappointed by the present, always 
telling us that life is not worth living, but that has 
not the courage to commit suicide ! Then there is a 
scientific body of men who are simply dying to believe 
in the continuance of consciousness after death but 
spend their time in devising imaginary difficulties 
and objections to keep their neighbors from calling 
names and to insure their respectability. They invent 
innumerable phrases and shibboleths to evade the 
plainest and most intelligible possibilities. From fear 
of social ostracism they cannot even admit that the 
case looks like a future life and then doubt the proof 
of it, but must coin unintelligible terms and " might 
be's " to cover up an interest that they have not the 
courage to avow and to sustain the pretension that 
there is nothing to be said on any other side of the 
question than that of words whose meaning is still 
undetermined. 

This is the complex situation which the psychical 
researcher has to meet, and woe unto him if he has 
no sense of humor. If in the contemplation of all 
this he cannot judiciously mix laughter and tears he 
is not to be pitied for any discomfiture he experiences. 
He must take his fellows on the estimate which evolu- 
tion makes and this involves a measure of contempt 
quite equal to the pride and self -appreciation which 
they wish to cultivate. If he is sensitive to ridicule 
and wants the respect of his kind he must learn to 
keep silent, but if any terrible earnestness blinds 
him to the bigotry and dogmatism of established opin- 
ions, quite equal to the despised doctrines of the dark 



HUMOROUS ASPECTS OF PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 

ages, or induces him to recognize a pathos in human 
existence which a deeper moral insight does not jus- 
tify, he must take the consequences of public med- 
dling in any mixture of science and religion. But 
some of us like to hear the lion roar and take a 
malicious delight in exhibiting human nature and 
opinion at their real value, whether found in the 
fool, the newspaper editor, the scientist, or the phi- 
losopher. There is no use in being a preacher when 
you can get a good deal of fun out of meddling with 
the self-complacency of those who think they possess 
universal knowledge. This class also has to earn 
its bread and if it lacks the perception of its own 
foibles and follies we must let it alone or get our 
pleasures out of judicious modes of tormenting it. 
The process of evolution would be pathetic enough 
if man were what he thinks himself. But what we call 
our ideals are euphemisms for our vices. Life is 
not a tragedy. I wish it were. We might then hope 
that man would get his deserts. It is merely a comedy 
in which idealism has no functions. When the psy- 
chical researcher realizes this he will temper his en- 
thusiasm, laugh at the humorous helplessness of his 
own situation, and seek an enjoyment in disturbing 
the complacent equanimity of science and philosophy 
by a discreet use of irony and satire. 



CHAPTER II 

PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND COINCIDENCES 

From time immemorial coincidences have been ob- 
jects of uncommon human interest and curiosity. 
The discovery of them still leads, as it always has led, 
to all sorts of superstitions. They survive to be re- 
marked even by those who laugh at them. If a knife 
falls on the floor a stranger may be expected. Hun- 
dreds of such ' signs,' originating from the observa- 
tion of chance coincidences, are at the constant com- 
mand of the average man or woman, whether believed 
or ridiculed. Another class of coincidences which are 
more striking appeals to the instinct for special prov- 
idences, mysterious meaning or supernatural explana- 
tion of some kind. They are often sufficiently strik- 
ing and respectably authenticated to puzzle wise heads 
for a means to dislodge the impression of their real 
or possible causal significance. The collection and 
preservation of them by the Society for Psychical 
Research, no matter what we may think of them, has 
done much to strengthen the interest and belief in 
the possible meaning of such phenomena, especially 
when they take a certain form. The scientific or 
even quasi-scientific investigation of such things in- 
vests them with an importance that would not belong 
to them naturally, and that would make little impres- 
sion upon the organized power of scientific opinion 
unless equally organized and sustained. But it i/3 

24 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND COINCIDENCES 

not necessary to warn scientific men against treating 
coincidences seriously. They are proof enough 
against that temptation. 

There is, however, a complaint which I have to 
make against them. It is not for remissness in their 
allegiance to scientific method, but for an unnecessary 
failure to apply it as fully as it might be done in a 
field where the term s coincidence ' gives rise to very 
different illusions. There are ' coincidences ' and 
' coincidences.' Not that I shall here beg any ques- 
tions as to the important significance of any of them 
for the supernatural or for anything resembling it, 
but that some are undoubtedly more suggestive of 
the need of a causal explanation than others. 

Hence I shall make a distinction between two kinds 
of coincidences. The first I shall call formal or un- 
suggestive and the second material or suggestive coin- 
cidences. I intend no mysterious meaning or distinc- 
tion by the terms ' formal ' and * material.' They 
represent only the difference between coincidences that 
are mere coincidences and coincidences that also have 
some identity of content more or less of a striking 
and suggestive character. The distinction is perhaps 
the same as that between what we call casual or chance 
coincidences and causal or significant coincidences. 
An illustration of the former kind is that of an un- 
expected meeting of two friends at a great distance 
from their usual habitat and without any previous 
knowledge of each other's movements. Of the second 
kind is perhaps the case of absolutely identical 
thoughts under circumstances which do not superfi- 
cially explain the identity, but which may be traced 

25 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

to association awakened by some object having a 
common interest or connected with a common ex- 
perience. In the first class belong all those conjunc- 
tions of things that do not involve the concerted or 
purposive action of the subjects experiencing them 
and not involving any such identity of content or 
adaptive fitness of several events to a single end. 
In the latter class belong all those coincidences that 
involve either concerted action or common known and 
unknown causes. The average scientific man, how- 
ever, too often lumps all coincidences together indis- 
criminately, making the conception a hard-and-fast 
one and convertible with that of causeless connections. 
But there are traces of cowardice and equivocation 
in this attitude of mind or a priori method of treating 
phenomena that too often prevent the scientific man 
from recognizing in some coincidences a causal nexus 
of a very interesting kind, though not of the sort 
alleged by the supernaturalist and coincidence-mong- 
ers generally. Not to make the distinction, therefore, 
which I have made between the mere fact of coinci- 
dence and the coincidence of content, is an error that 
leads to an unscientific treatment of such problems 
and prevents a search for obscure causes that are quite 
within the reach of normal psychology or recognized 
agencies. 

In remarking this error to which the scientist often 
exposes himself I have in mind a defect of Parish's 
very able criticism of the Census of Hallucinations. 
I do not mean, however, to use this defect either as 
a defense of psychical research or as an impeachment 
of his method of criticism. On the contrary, no one 

26 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND COINCIDENCES 

can read that book without being convinced of its 
cogency and importance, if he did not know it before. 
In addition to this concession, the defect which I wish 
to remark is the failure to observe facts directly 
counter to dissociation and illusions of memory, and 
which would immensely have strengthened his verdict 
of ' not proven ' against the supposition of super- 
normal agencies. 

The first obvious defect of Parish's work is that 
there is no evidence of any inside study of the phe- 
nomena the conclusions from which he criticises. The 
second objection is that he risks the whole force of 
his criticism upon the suspicion of dissociation and 
illusions of memory, in which the responsibility for 
the defective nature of the cases reported falls upon 
the subject of the narrative, and not upon the re- 
ceiver of it. But I wish here to contend that not 
only may there be cases in which the difficulty is 
not what Parish supposes, but that the really serious 
difficulties can often be found only by a careful study 
of the individual case. I mean here, of course, the 
study of the mental habits, beliefs and laws of asso- 
ciation in the individual reporting a remarkable ex- 
perience. Consequently I desire to show in this chap- 
ter that there is a more important source of miscon- 
ception than the subject's illusions of memory, and 
that it can be discovered often only on the condition 
that we accept the deliverances of this faculty. Illu- 
sions of memory are of course a vantage ground for 
objection, but are neither the only ones nor the best 
ones. I shall show this after stating the facts upon 
which the conviction rests, and which have been gath- 

27 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

ered from a personal study of an individual case of 
some interest. The facts represent an extraordinary 
combination of apparitions and apparent premonition 
in which a purely objective and superficial view would 
suggest a supernormal and perhaps spiritistic inter- 
pretation. Before making any comments or expla- 
nations I shall narrate the incidents in the order in 
which they occurred, and in which I obtained them. 
The subject of the experiences is one who has no 
prejudices in favor of such phenomena. On the 
contrary, the antipathy to anything like a spiritistic 
view of them is unyielding and marked by what the 
sceptic would regard as a very healthy disgust. The 
intelligence is sufficient to make the facts entirely 
acceptable, and, though some of them will not strike 
a scientific observer as of any serious interest, es- 
pecially when thought of as isolated, yet the at least 
amusingly cumulative character of them and their 
distinct semblance to those experiences which so many 
people feel may be significant are striking enough to 
justify analysis and explanation, especially when this 
explanation exhibits a neglected source of miscon- 
ception. The facts, then, are as follows: 

The experiences to be here narrated are those of 
a lady whom I shall call Mrs. D. She is the same 
subject of whom I have reported a number of other 
interesting incidents in the Proceedings of the Society 
for Psychical Research. This fact will be useful to 
know if the reader wishes to study the whole group 
of phenomena coming from the same source. But 
the present group is wholly independent of the earlier 
cases. 



fSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND COINCIDENCES 

Some time in July, 1897, Mrs. D. had a strong im- 
pression that some unusual ' burden ' was going to 
fall upon the family. She could describe the feeling 
in no other way, and it will be noticed that the expres- 
sion is a common one with religious minds, which 
often employ the term to denote a providential afflic- 
tion. This meaning Mrs. D. gave to the term her- 
self. But the feeling was too vague to identify with 
any past cause or any incident to be forecasted in 
the future. In stating the fact also it must be re- 
membered that Mrs. D. was in good health, in fact, 
better than usual, as the phrase goes, though at no 
time does she have to complain of more than the in- 
disposition of people who have the personal care of 
their children and the domestic work. Hence there 
was nothing in her physical condition that would sug- 
gest a clear physical cause of such a feeling, nor 
any meaning that might deserve attention. I am 
not implying that there were no such causes, for 
there may have been conditions that a skilled physi- 
cian would detect. But to the consciousness of the 
subject there was no indication of indisposition of 
any kind. In fact, she has answered all my inquiries 
on this point to the effect that her peculiar experi- 
ences occur most frequently when her health is at its 
best, so far as her own judgment can determine. 
Throughout the whole period over which the present 
narrative extends her health was good. In the month 
of August this premonitory feeling repeated itself 
very frequently, and became so annoying that Mrs. 
D. mentioned it to her husband, who confirms her 
statement in regard to both facts, and hence supports 

29 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

the supposition that the location of the experience 
previous to its real or supposed fulfilment is not due 
to an illusion of memory. Finally, the feeling became 
so intense and persistent that Mrs. D., as is often the 
case with religious minds as deeply imbued with piety 
as is her own, sought relief in prayer. But though 
this resource had in her estimation been effective in 
other cases where it had been instigated, as might well 
be in a mind so sensitive to automatisms as is her 
own, yet the feeling could not be dismissed, and with 
a conviction that the affliction was not to be evaded 
she sought to cultivate the frame of mind suited to 
the endurance of the inevitable. 

To make the matter clearer it is necessary to antic- 
ipate the sequel of the story, to which the incidents 
of the narrative are supposed to refer. This is that 
the little daughter, whom I shall call Lettie, and who 
was just one year and nine months old, died on De- 
cember 2, 1897, from the burning of her cradle. 

At odd times between August and December Mrs. 
D., in her thoughts about the child's future and while 
planning some little thing for her, would hear a voice 
saying, " She'll never need it." One of these occa- 
sions was the following: The family live in a house 
with few accommodations for a clergyman who re- 
quires a study, and Mrs. D. planned to give Lettie 
a certain room for a bedroom when she grew older, 
and was running over how she would furnish it, and 
this voice came as described. It was not exactly what 
one could describe as an external voice, nor again a 
mere thought impression or product of the memory 
and imagination, as we usually characterize such 

30 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND COINCIDENCES 

things, but one of those internal voices with which 
psychical researches have become familiar and which 
Mrs. D. herself distinguishes as neither a real voice 
nor a memory reproduction, but an impression with 
all the characters of a real voice except the sense of 
external reality. Psychiatrists will recognize without 
remark the nature of such an experience, and as I 
am only narrating facts I do not need to make any 
comments. 

There were many repetitions of this voice in about 
the same language. One of them occurred about two 
weeks before the child's death. Mrs. D. had resolved 
to write a little diary which she could give to the 
child when it became older. She wrote down two 
separate accounts on different days of certain events 
having an interest to the little girl, the day of the 
month, unfortunately for the psychical researches, 
not being mentioned in them, though this would have 
been of no importance for the contents of the diary, 
as there is nothing evidential in them regarding the 
incidents at hand. But while writing them, this voice 
came as before : " She'll never need them." The day 
before the child died the same voice appeared, and 
on the morning of her death she was running 
about the house in a rather dilapidated pair of shoes, 
when Mrs. D. remarked to the child that her feet 
must be cold and thought she must have a new pair 
of shoes. In the midst of her thoughts came the 
voice again, " She'll never need them." It must be 
added also that, previous to the impression of a com- 
ing ' burden ' above described, this voice had been 
heard several times. 

31 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

About a week before the child's death Mrs. D. 
thought she smelled fire at night, and feeling afraid 
of it went to the cellar to look after the matches 
and to see that there was no danger. She found no 
traces of fire and nothing to explain her impression. 
But from that time she began to be careful about 
matches, seeing that they were in safe places and out 
of reach. She even went so far as to look over the 
house for the matches, and felt a strong impulse to 
burn all parlor matches which were of that kind that 
is easily lighted. Once the impulse to do this was 
attended with something like a voice warning her to 
the same end, and about the danger of fire. Nothing 
definite enough having been suggested by the voice 
to guide her actions directly, Mrs. D. could only im- 
agine the necessary precautions, and finally thought 
to hang a dripping pan in front of the range fire, 
a thing she had never done before, to prevent 
coals from falling out during the night. Nor had 
any apprehensions of this kind ever been felt before, 
within her recollection, and there were no special 
reasons to suppose that any danger of fire in this 
way existed. But as there was no other fire in the 
house than that in this range and one in the heater, 
a sort of closed stove or furnace like the Baltimore 
heater, no other definite course was left open to the 
imagination for preventive measures except the un- 
usual one mentioned. 

On the morning of the child's death, and during 
family worship, another incident of some interest 
occurred. In the midst of the petition for individual 
members of the family, when she came to the phrase 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND COINCIDENCES 

with which she besought divine care for each one, 
and attempted to apply it in behalf of Lettie, though 
no difficulty was encountered in the case of the other 
children, in this case something seemed to stop Mrs. 
D.'s voice, and she could not repeat the usual lan- 
guage. She recalls no similar previous experience. 

On the same morning, about an hour before the 
fatal disaster, the propulsion to destroy the matches 
that were dangerous became stronger and stronger, 
until Mrs. D. turned and reached for the box to de- 
stroy it. But as she picked it up she thought, No; 
L. (the elder boy) is gone, and she thought that 
she might need the matches to light the gas stove. 
She then said aloud to herself, " I'll destroy it as 
soon as he comes back." She then went on with her 
work in the kitchen. When the time came, about 
ten o'clock, Lettie was taken up to her crib for the 
morning sleep, and as Mrs. D. was putting her into 
the cradle a voice, such as has been described above, 
said : " Turn the mattress." This Mrs. D. was ac- 
customed to do, though she had never experienced 
any voice before in connection with it. But, being 
in a great hurry, she simply said in a motherly way 
to the child that she would turn the mattress after 
the child had taken her nap. She then went down 
stairs to her work. After a while she heard the child 
cry, and hurrying up to the room, found the crib and 
its bedding on fire, and the child so badly burned 
that it died in three hours. 

The only possible way to account for the accident 
was to suppose that the child had found a match, 
possibly in the crib or on the mantel piece, which she 

33 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

could reach, and lighting it, had set its bedclothes 
on fire. The other two children were not present. 
L. had gone down town on an errand and E., the 
younger boy, was at school. No fire was on this 
floor of the house, but in the kitchen and the dining 
room, both below. 

Now, another incident of much interest had oc- 
curred many times during the two or three years' 
residence of the family in this house. Mrs. D. had 
often had a visual apparition of this very crib on 
fire, but as her apparitions or visual automatisms 
are very frequent, she had not thought to assign 
it any meaning or possible coincidental value until 
after the accident. 

These were the experiences of Mrs. D. previous 
to the event, but there were two other incidents by 
other persons than Mrs. D., that lend themselves to 
a construction of coincidence in connection with the 
accident. The first is exactly like the one narrated 
as occurring at family devotions. Mrs. D. has a 
sister living in Connecticut, some seventy-five miles 
from B., the home of Mrs. D. No correspondence 
had passed recently between them, and the sister was 
not given to as devotional a life as Mrs. D. It must 
also be remembered that the sister had ridiculed Mrs. 
D.'s stories of her experiences, and even went so far 
as to criticise Mrs. D. half jestingly for her extrav- 
agant piety. She discouraged Mrs. D.'s tolerance of 
possible significance in many of the coincidences which 
I have recorded in the Proceedings of the Society for 
Psychical Research (Vol. 12, p. 259 seq.), when they 
were the subject of conversation. But on hearing of 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND COINCIDENCES 

the child's death she came to B. and narrated an 
experience of her own. It was to the effect that about 
a week before the death of the child she had had such 
an experience as she had never had before. An over- 
whelming impression of some great calamity to occur 
in the ' family ' (the incidents show that the term 
included the whole family connections), and the im- 
pulse arose in her to pray for each one, which she 
did, feeling, as she expressed it in her narrative, that 
this was an unusual procedure for her. She went over 
each person among parents and relatives, until she 
came to the child, Lettie, when her voice suddenly 
stopped and she could not pray for her as for the 
others. She finally managed, however, to utter with 
struggling voice a petition for ' our little blossom,' 
the name which she was accustomed to apply to Lettie 
when speaking of her. 

The second incident was an experience of the next 
door neighbor to the D.'s. I shall call the lady who 
had it Mrs. G. On the afternoon of the child's death 
Mrs. G. came in about three o'clock and apropos of 
the accident remarked that on the night before, I 
believe it was, she had been wakened by the fear of 
fire and had gone down to the cellar to search for it, 
and exclaimed while making the search : " Oh ! if 
our little baby should burn up ! " Her own child 
was about the age of Lettie. The relation of this 
incident to the case will be noticed later. 

There was also another experience of Mrs. D.'s 
which psychical researchers would classify as ' sym- 
bolical.' Whether it be so or not is a matter of no 
concern to us at present, but is recorded for the sake 

35 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

of the interpretation which the mind is capable of 
putting on it either as an afterthought or as a con- 
firmatory coincidence of the others. But a night 
or two before the accident Mrs. D. had a dream with 
the following incidents in it. She had gone with 
Mr. D. and the three children to the railway station 
at M. to take the train for a visit to a friend. As 
they came up to the station the train was coming in. 
Mr. D. with the oldest child, L., ran across the track 
ahead of the train and reached the platform. Mrs. 
D. and the other two children were too late to get 
across the track and waited until it stopped. They 
then climbed upon the car platform to cross over 
and join Mr. D. and L. But, just as they reached 
the platform, the train began to back upon a switch, 
which was the custom at this place to let a train pass. 
Mrs. D. paid no attention to it, but started through 
the car expecting to find her husband and other child. 
She noticed that the train was empty, but, leaving 
the two children in a seat, went on in the search for 
Mr. D. and L. Presently she found that the train 
kept backing and backing until she noticed that it 
was near Toledo, some forty miles from her start- 
ing point, when she came upon the conductor, who 
told her that the children, E. and Lettie, had been 
switched off some time before. Mr. D. and L. 
reached their destination safely and were joined later 
by Mrs. D. Such was the dream. Now, since the 
death of Lettie and during the funeral Mrs. D. has 
frequently heard a voice say, " The end is not yet." 
Mrs. D. also narrates that she often has a feeling 
that E., the child here associated with Lettie in the 

36 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND COINCIDENCES 

dream, may get killed by the trolley cars, accidents 
of this kind being frequent in the city where the fam- 
ily lives. 

These experiences took place before the death of 
the child. There are two others, however, that oc- 
curred after it and that may throw some light upon 
all the phenomena purporting to suggest coincidence. 

The night after the burial of the child Mrs. D., 
as perhaps is true of most persons passing through 
a shock of this kind, could picture to herself nothing 
but the little coffin and the grave. It was not a 
vision or an hallucination, but only a memory picture, 
such as any one can recall. The remembered picture 
was exceedingly unpleasant, and, evidently, in spite 
of her faith, a little tinge of scepticism came to dis- 
turb her mind, because she said that she did not like to 
think that her little child was not a spirit, but a 
corpse with a vanished soul. To remove the unpleas- 
ant feeling Mrs. D. prayed to have a realizing sense 
and the power to know that the child was a spirit 
and did not lie in the grave. At this time she was 
at the home of her sister, whither the family had 
gone to seek a burial place. One morning, soon after 
this prayer, she awakened and lay for an hour think- 
ing over family affairs. The sun was shining brightly 
in the room, and while thinking about the clothes 
she would put on the two boys to prevent their best 
ones from being soiled at their play when they got 
up, suddenly she saw a form by the bedside, and 
turning, saw an apparition of little Lettie with her 
hands on the bedside and smiling at Mrs. D. By 
her side was the form of a woman, holding her hands 

37 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

about the child, as if to assist it. Mrs. D. sprang up 
in bed and unconsciously exclaimed, " Good morning, 
Lettie," and both figures immediately vanished. The 
forms were transparent and objects could be seen 
through them. The grown form was not recogniz- 
able as any one that Mrs. D. knew, but it had no 
distinct resemblance to the representation of an angel, 
such as pictures might suggest. It seemed, there- 
fore, not to be an automatism from the memory of 
angelic pictures. The dress fitted rather closely, 
and the hair was of a decidedly golden hue and the 
face one of great beauty. No suggestion of friends 
was apparent in it. The experience displaced the 
ugly feeling created by the memory of the coffin 
and the grave, and though not believing that she 
had seen the spirit of her child, or that spiritualism 
is a rational doctrine, Mrs. D. retained a strong sense 
of satisfaction from the vision. She is disposed to 
interpret it as a providential comfort for her sorrow. 

At the end of December another incident took place 
that will have some interest. This time it was the 
experience of the little boy E. It was first told me 
by Mr. D., who had called on a business matter. It 
seems that the child had climbed up on a couch beside 
his mother who lay down for a rest, and in a few 
moments asked his mother if his sister Lettie was 
smoke. The following letter from Mrs. D. in re- 
sponse to my inquiry narrates the details of the 
occurrence. 

B , January 5th, 1898. 

Dr. Hyslop: 

You requested a note of E's recent experience. It 
occurred on Thursday eve, Dec. 30th (1897). 

38 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND COINCIDENCES 

I lay down on the sofa to rest in the evening, and, 
as he often does, he climbed back of me to rest with 
me. I do not remember what my thoughts were, 
but feel quite confident I was not thinking of my ex- 
perience at S ', Conn., when E. said : " Mamma, 

is little Lettie air now ? Is she like smoke ? " Why, 
darling? " 'Cause I just saw her and put my arms 
around her and she was like air." I will endeavor to 
keep account of anything further. 

Yours respectfully, 

E D . 

On inquiry about the incident I could find no trace 
of any story to the child that might lead to a belief 
on its part in such a reality as its experience might 
be taken to describe. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. D. could 
recall any narrative that might suggest it. No imme- 
diate thought or statement of Mrs. D., who was 
intent on rest, could be recalled that might have in- 
spired the child's idea. Moreover, the child was only 
four years old. The incident impressed both parents 
as very striking, and they were evidently puzzled 
by it, having a strong aversion to the apparent mean- 
ing of such occurrences. 

Such are the facts, or at least alleged facts, in a 
case of real or apparent coincidences. I must warn 
the reader, however, that I have not narrated them 
either for the purpose of proving any hypothesis 
or with the demand that any one shall consider them 
genuine or significant. I am content if I have pro- 
duced an average story of this kind which can at 
least pretend to authenticity. I am willing to concede 
any amount of scepticism in regard to the importance 

39 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

of the alleged experiences, since it is not a part of 
my task either to vindicate their authenticity beyond 
question or to urge their extraordinary interest. Any 
man may have what theory he pleases about these 
matters. The plan here is to produce facts in the 
same individual experience which science will have 
either to question equally with the above in order to 
save its consistency or to accept the whole with their 
defense of psychological interest for even suspicious 
phenomena. Nevertheless, since it is the intention to 
show more fruitful sources of difficulty to the super- 
normal than illusions of memory, it will be necessary 
to recognize the question of authenticity and allied 
problems. But the main purpose is to study the 
individual case and to find in it the explanation of 
what one side may regard as supernormal and what 
the other ignores simply for the lack of courage to 
study the facts. 

I think that every one would frankly admit that 
the narrative presents, at least to the ordinary mind, 
an extraordinary set of coincidences in favor of 
premonition and spiritism. That is the interpreta- 
tion which the temperament of many persons would 
put upon the incidents, and their apparent relevance 
for this purpose is all that I care to sustain. The 
impression that such experiences make on the average 
man or woman is all that it is necessary to recognize 
in order to demand for them the same consideration 
which mesmerism and reports about meteors were 
finally able to exact, much to the shame of those 
who at first insisted upon laughing at them. For 
myself I do not wonder that untrained psychologists 

40 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND COINCIDENCES 

feel greatly puzzled at such incidents, when I come to 
consider the marvelous fertility and complexity of 
mental processes. After all, science is founded on 
coincidences of some kind, and it cannot afford to 
dismiss them hastily, when a little tolerance and pa- 
tience will reveal a rich field of explanation, without 
discrediting facts on the one hand, or rushing into 
the arms of the supernatural on the other. In the 
present case some of the facts certainly simulate the 
view of premonition and others equally simulate a 
spiritistic interpretation. I think few persons would 
question this assertion. But refusing to treat them 
conscientiously will neither dispel the illusions so 
freely imputed to others nor discover the causes of 
their apparent significance. 

The first criticism which I imagine the average 
psychologist would direct against the supposed value 
of the alleged coincidences narrated would be the 
vague indefiniteness of the feelings spoken of as pre- 
monitory. This I have mentioned for the sake of 
conceding it as fatal if the question concerned their 
evidential character in behalf of the supernormal. 
But, inasmuch as I am less anxious either to prove or 
to disprove the extraordinary nature of the phenomena 
than I am to discover in this individual case the pos- 
sible influence of other agencies quite independent of 
both vagueness and distinctness, I may assume that 
the case is free from that objection. Besides the 
accusation of indefiniteness cannot so easily be brought 
against the incidents of the apparition of the burn- 
ing cradle and the automatism or voice " She'll never 
need them." Nor is there any vagueness about the 

41 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

apparition of the child after death. But I shall 
grant, for the sake of the argument, that the facts are 
too inconsequential to seduce severe scientific method 
from its attitude of scepticism, in so far as the super- 
normal is concerned. It will not be so easy, however, 
to explain the coincidences as it will be to doubt their 
evidential value for occult theories. But, as the more 
definite experiences yield to easy normal explanation, 
when the mental habits of the subject are known, we 
may easily dispose of the less definite incidents. 

The spiritistic interpretation, I have said, is a nat- 
ural one for these incidents. But the difficulties with 
which that hypothesis has to contend are much greater 
than the narrative would suggest, and they can be dis- 
covered only by a direct investigation of the mind that 
had the experiences. To make this evident, I have to 
remark many more facts than are even likely to find 
their way spontaneously into such a story. They are 
all included, however, under the general head of 
automatisms. This term I use to denote any resurg- 
ence into consciousness of either an apparent reality 
or an idea wholly foreign to the contents of the pres- 
ent stream of thought and in no way impressible into 
it. They may be called by any other name that is de- 
sirable. If the reader prefers the term hallucination 
I shall not object. But I choose ' automatism ' as 
less invidious in its implications. I have found these 
experiences very frequent with Mrs. D. Many of 
them have been closely connected with her religious 
life, the automatism taking a form that associated 
it at once with an intense devotional piety. For in- 
stance, the habit of devotion in moods of religious 

42 



PSYCHICAL, RESEARCH AND COINCIDENCES 

want was intimately associated with promptings to 
pray at the most unlikely times and in the most un- 
likely places. Religious reflection seems to have in- 
stigated certain tendencies to a strong and persistent 
emotional life that had an associative influence upon 
the stream independent of the ideas immediately in the 
field of attention. The consequence was a large num- 
ber of automatisms, often capricious, but traceable to 
the subliminal trend of her emotional life. Pierre 
Janet's conception of the ' disintegration of person- 
ality ' affords a good representation of what went on 
in her mind, though not at all so marked as in his 
cases. Her religious emotions were either persistent 
with all the incidents of everyday life or were sub- 
liminally active when they had no natural connection 
with the main stream of mental action. As an illus- 
tration of this I may mention an instance of crystal 
vision which I have already put on record from the 
same subject. (' Proceedings of Society for Psychic- 
al Research,' Vol. 12, p. 261.) This experience rep- 
resented a vision of a room with sunbeams pouring 
into it through a recessional window, and into the 
stream of sunlight flew a dove. Remembering that 
many religious books and pictures have associated 
sunlight and the dove, I inquired to know whether 
Mrs. D. was familiar with such representations and 
found that she was, just such a picture being in 
one of the family Bibles. She herself did not recall 
any such until her husband first responded to my 
question in the affirmative, showing that the associa- 
tion was wholly subliminal. Another beautiful in- 
stance of purely subliminal association will be found 

43 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

in the case of Miss X. (' Proceedings of Society 
for Psychical Research,' Vol. 8, p. 484.) It quite 
resembles the one by Mrs. D. Now the room into 
which Mrs. D. saw the sunbeams pouring exactly 
resembles a corner in a medieval church. This would 
naturally appeal to the religious emotions and asso- 
ciations. The tendency of the mind under such con- 
ditions requires no further comment for the psychol- 
ogist. Nor is it necessary for the subject to be able 
to detect the trend of consciousness in the case. The 
influences are too subtle to be traced easily. But 
they are there, and have to be reckoned with in the 
explanation of all data not properly fusible with the 
main stream. Another beautiful series of automa- 
tisms with Mrs. D. are connected with the playing 
of the piano. She has had no special training for 
this, and has picked up mostly what little she knows 
by herself. About two years ago, and all at once, 
without any practice, a piano having been provided 
only a short time before and no regular playing hav- 
ing been indulged for a long time, Mrs. D. noticed 
herself playing pieces automatically and sent for me 
to know what it was. She was wholly unconscious of 
intending the movements of the fingers or the pieces 
of music played. Some of the pieces played were 
wholly unknown to her. Some were familiar hymns 
and some were a combination of various familiar 
pieces of church music. In listening to the instances 
of unknown pieces I noticed that they were of the 
same type as the familiar hymns: They were all of 
the religious class. I found on inquiry that music 
has a strong influence on her religious emotions. This 

44 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND COINCIDENCES 

effect would react on the piano playing, so that any 
emotional phase of her mental life in the field of at- 
tention or out of it, that is, supraliminal or subliminal, 
might either recall the past into consciousness or 
automatically reproduce music that she might or 
might not recognize. That she might not recognize 
some pieces is easily rendered probable by the experi- 
ence which she narrated to me about the sky, garden 
fence, chain pump, etc. ( see ' Proceedings of Society 
for Psychical Research,' Vol. 12, p. 262, 263), and 
which illustrates very clearly both the fact of autom- 
atism and recall without recognition. In the musi- 
cal instances we find the influence of the main trend 
of religious emotion. Not that this is the only emo- 
tion that is likely to produce them, but that there is 
a unity between this fact in her life and the musical 
automatisms observed. That circumstance suffices 
to establish a principle to be used here as a basis of 
explanation. 

We have now a fulcrum to apply in the case of the 
incidents connected with the present narrative. Take 
first the apparition a few hours after the funeral. 
This is one of the decidedly spiritistic incidents of the 
case. But if the reader will return to it, he will find 
that the state of mind that preceded it was precisely 
one that might lead to just such an automatism as the 
experience records, if it be an automatism. I hardly 
know a better fact to suggest automatism originated 
by latent influences in the system than this very in- 
cident. There was confessedly a strong wish to re- 
move what was in reality, though not perceived as 
such, a sceptical feeling about spiritual survival from 

45 



Psychical research and the resurrection 

the grave. There was a desire and a struggle to get 
rid of an unpleasant fear, impression or memory, and 
the act of prayer would tend to restore the old faith 
and its influence upon the mind. The physical ex- 
hilaration of the sunlight and fresh morning air in the 
country might produce a favorable condition, sublim- 
inal or supraliminal, for the resurgence into conscious- 
ness of a suitable object of consolation. What more 
likely then than that the mind should succeed in push- 
ing forward some experience which would take the 
place of the unpleasant sensation that had instigated 
the prayer? Having had many experiences of visions, 
aural automatisms and impressions, evidently deter- 
mined by those conditions of mind not immediately oc- 
cupied with the object of apperception and closely 
associated with religious wants and emotions, we can 
here trace a possible influence from the latent expec- 
tation of consolation to relieve the disagreeable feel- 
ing connected with a half sceptical tone of mind 
wholly foreign to her regular life. 

The psychical researcher may think this explana- 
tion rather far-fetched. This may be true, and I do 
not care to urge it as determinately true beyond all 
doubt. I am satisfied if it can appear as an alterna- 
tive possibility to the spiritistic theory, for that fact 
will put limitations upon the theory that claims at 
least superficial recognition. 

Another interesting incident in the narrative points 
in the same direction. This is the case of the appa- 
rition of the burning cradle. It is one of the most 
striking coincidental features of the whole narrative. 
I have mentioned the experience without any of the 

46 



PSYCHICAL, RESEARCH AND COINCIDENCES 

circumstances that personal inquiry produced, in or- 
der to keep the incident in the shape that such facts 
usually take where the antecedent circumstances are 
not investigated. But now if we inquire into these 
we shall find a possible explanation, certainly pref- 
erable to anything like premonition until that 
hypothesis obtains satisfactory credentials elsewhere. 
The fact is that the crib stood within a few feet of a 
fire grate. But as there had been no fire in this grate 
for a year or more the accident could not have been 
caused by this, a circumstance mentioned to sustain 
the theory above advanced to account for the acci- 
dent. In the first place, Mrs. D. herself had all along 
explained the vision of the burning crib by this very 
proximity to the fire grate. In the second place, al- 
most every one would have such a possibility suggested 
to the mind by this situation of the crib. But not 
every one is subject to automatisms, and such thoughts 
are easily referred to their proper source in associa- 
tion. Mrs. D., however, as we have found, is liable to 
these occurrences. Besides the associations of others, 
whether supraliminal or subliminal, these influences 
are liable to provoke an automatism independently of 
the main stream of consciousness. Now it is the un- 
usual occurrence and character of automatisms that 
call special attention to them. They are easily re- 
membered as interesting and significant if any coin- 
cidence with them is remarked. If the accident of the 
child's death had occurred only in connection with an 
association of a burning crib, every one would have 
dismissed it as a coincidence not worth taking seri- 
ously, and no significance would be given it. But 

47 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

when an accident of this sort occurs in coincidence 
with an apparition apparently premonitory in char- 
acter, we forget association and are tempted by the 
unusual nature of the phenomenon to ascribe to it a 
value that it may not deserve. We may concede that 
such an experience might have some significance if 
not connected with automatisms as frequent or habit- 
ual occurrences. But here we have in this very sub- 
ject the existence of automatisms which can be traced 
directly to emotional influences of various sorts. 
There is a frequent connection between past thoughts 
and associations and certain sensory automatisms, 
and we have only to suppose this case one of them 
in order to explain it in a natural way. Mere asso- 
ciation in this case would not have suggested signifi- 
cance. Hence, as there is a probable connection be- 
tween a frequent association and an interesting coinci- 
dental automatism, there will be no more reason to 
give the latter a significance than the former, which 
is never inclined to receive such importance. If the 
content of the automatism and its complications are 
independent both of habit and hallucinatory sugges- 
tion, there might be an excuse for suspecting an im- 
portance for it. But there is no more a priori reason 
for giving evidential value to an automatism than to 
a suggestion from association. Consequently, when 
we find an experience in all probability only a more 
developed product of association, which does not ob- 
tain any transcendental significance, a product in 
which central activities effect the work of peripheral 
stimuli, the central action being nothing more than 
association or suggestion, as in dreams and hypnotic 

48 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND COINCIDENCES 

hallucinations, we must not be in haste to attribute to 
it other than the normal psychological value, although 
it has other than the normal psychological cause. 

Another incident is amenable to the same explana- 
tion. It is the case of the automatism occurring at 
the time the child was put to bed. The aural auto- 
matism, " Turn the mattress," can easily be accounted 
for by supposing that the natural resistance of mem- 
ory and association to the resolution not to turn the 
mattress at the time might readily produce the result. 
Of course, we should not expect any such occurrence in 
the average person, but we have here a case con- 
stantly exposed to it, and also the two known facts 
that she was accustomed to do the very thing indicated 
by the voice and that this very thought was con- 
sciously urgent on the mind until the resolution not 
to turn the mattress was formed. The automatism, 
" Turn the mattress," was then probably nothing 
more than an hallucinatory resurgence of the thought 
that preceded that resolution, the impact of habit and 
association against the new course adopted. 

The two incidents just considered were of the pre- 
monitory type, and could be brought under one gen- 
eral explanation. The next is not so easy to explain 
in the same way. But it may be made to yield to a 
more complicated analysis. The incident is the little 
brother's apparition of his sister a month after her 
death. This is certainly very interesting, whatever 
we may think of its value as evidence for transcenden- 
tal existence. It has a more decidedly spiritistic ap- 
pearance than the other incidents. Nevertheless, its 
cogency is subject to limitations which, though com- 

49 



PSYCHICAIi RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

plicated, ought to be carefully considered both pro 
and con. 

The first objection to its evidential character for 
the spiritistic theory is the doubt about the source of 
the child's idea of his sister after her death. But as 
my object is not to risk the case on the impeachment 
of testimony, I wish to deal with the case as if it were 
not subject to scepticism at all. Assuming then that 
the apparition was in no way a direct suggestion of 
the parents, I have to look for an explanation outside 
of spiritism. Now, on inquiry I have found incidents 
that may lead the way out of this supposition. I find 
that Mrs. D. has noticed a great many times since 
the occurrence that, while she happened to be think- 
ing of the child or even other matters, E. would speak 
up and mention her or the subject of his mother's 
thoughts. This has occurred so often and in such 
circumstances of a peculiar and unexpected sort that 
Mrs. D. herself remarked the possibility of account- 
ing for the original phenomenon by telepathy. Un- 
fortunately, however, she kept no record of these ob- 
servations, the contents or circumstances of the alleged 
coincidences, and hence there is nothing to go upon 
except her own unsupported judgment in regard to 
the cases thus mentioned by her, and they can pass 
for little worth. But an interesting incident occurred 
somewhat later which is more important in favor of a 
telepathic explanation, though this hypothesis depends 
upon prior proof of its truth for its application here. 
The incident suggesting this view of the occurrence 
I obtained the next day after its occurrence and with- 
out its bearing being anticipated by Mrs. D. 

50 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND COINCIDENCES 

Mrs. D. had retired early, and, awakening early, 
had got up to go to the kitchen about 3 o'clock. 
After she had reached the kitchen, and without any 
reason from previous habits or thoughts or from any 
known circumstances about the house, she suddenly 
felt a fear come over her that there might be a burg- 
lar in the house. She thought at once that such a 
feeling was nonsense, but it clung to her, and she 
looked at the window to see that it was secure, and 
turned to come back to the bedroom, when she saw a 
door open several inches and by which a man could 
easily have entered. Just as she started to close it, 
E., whom she had left sleeping in the next room and 
in no position to know anything about the door, awak- 
ened and called to her. Mrs. D. simply went on to 
close the door before responding to his call, and he 
again called out, impatiently, " Mamma, I was dream- 
ing that burglars were in the house." Now, if we 
treat this coincidence seriously at all, dismissing the 
possibility that the dream was a suggestion from her 
own movements in the room, at least for the sake of 
considering the other view, we might suppose it due to 
telepathy. If then we were to tolerate this hypothesis 
to explain the coincidence in this instance, we may ex- 
tend it to the case of the apparition, remembering 
that advocates of it do not maintain the necessity of 
present active thoughts to the result, inasmuch as the 
process may be wholly subliminal, as well as supralim- 
inal. It will be remembered that Mrs. D. was not 
thinking of the deceased child when the little boy's 
apparition of his sister took place. But at any rate, 
if we consider telepathy in the case that has no sug- 

51 



. PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

gestion of spiritism in it, the same hypothesis should 
be applied to the other coincidence if it permits of 
the application, as I think it does. 

But there is another resort that may commend it- 
self more favorably to the average scientific mind, if 
he does not admit the existence of telepathy. This 
supposition is effective against the spiritistic theory 
to those who accept telepathy, and hence I have the 
advantage of using it for that purpose where there is 
any disposition to treat the coincidences seriously at 
all. But dismissing the coincidence about the burg- 
lars either as a chance case or as a suggested dream, 
I was able at the time that the experience of the appa- 
rition was told me to ascertain some interesting facts 
that suggest a possible explanation for it independ- 
ently of both spiritism and telepathy. A careful in- 
quiry into a number of facts which I shall not take 
the space to describe in detail, but which were very 
suggestive, led me to believe that both the remaining 
children have some hereditary susceptibilities like the 
mother. Assuming this as probable at all events, and 
remembering that inquiry into the habit of the child 
E. showed he had been accustomed to lie on this very 
sofa with his little sister before her death with her in 
his arms, just as he described her in the apparition, 
we have only to suppose that suggestion might give 
rise to the apparition itself. This will, no doubt, 
appear a complicated and round-about explanation, 
but with the indications of hereditary peculiarities in 
the child and the wide range of automatism in Mrs. 
D. we may well halt before going farther for an ex- 
planation. 

52 



PSYCHICAL, RESEARCH AND COINCIDENCES 

There is also an interesting feature about Mrs. 
D.'s impression in regard to a burglar in the house. 
She knew no reason for its occurrence, as she had not 
been troubled with such feelings before. This also 
yielded to inquiry. I asked her whether in going to 
the kitchen she had to pass near enough to the open 
door to have a current of air come in contact with 
her, and the answer was decidedly in the affirmative. 
It was dark and she did not see the open door, nor 
did she consciously feel any draught of air, but the 
door opened into a hall from which a current of air 
could easily come, and this is a common fact in apart- 
ments of the kind in which the family live. Assum- 
ing such a draught of air, and with it, first, Mrs. 
D.'s liability to automatisms and, second, the pos- 
sibility of subliminal reasoning, such as Professor 
Newbold reported ( s Proceedings of Society for 
Psychical Research,' Vol. 12, pp. 11—21), we get an 
explanation of the automatism itself without resort- 
ing to the supernormal, even if we disregard the 
possibility that it was a chance suggestion of what 
may be and is a common thought in the large cities at 
that time of night. 

We have now disposed of some of the most striking 
incidents of the report, and there remains one very 
definite case not so easily explained away ; namely, the 
automatism of the voice, " She'll never need them," 
and the precautions about matches. The considera- 
tion of the latter incident opens up another aspect of 
the problem. It loses its significance at once when 
we ascertain, as I did, that Mrs. D. all her life has 
been very careful about matches and has often re- 

53 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

proached her husband for carelessness in this matter. 
But there is an aspect in the incident that brings 
up the problem of memory, and the method which I 
have to criticise in the work of Parish. 

From what I have remarked about Mrs. D.'s life- 
long habit of care in regard to matches we can easily 
see that the coincidence between her similar action just 
previous to the child's death and that event itself, or 
rather the supposed significance of it, is an after- 
thought, due to the very strength of the subject's 
memory rather than its weakness. We may say that 
there is dissociation of the habit previous to the time 
of the other automatisms, and thus recognize a meas- 
ure of defense for the contention of Parish, but with 
the ordinary memory not commanding so many of the 
smaller details of life the connection between the 
caution about matches and the accident to the child 
would hardly occur. It was probably the very keen- 
ness of Mrs. D.'s memory that enabled her to recall 
the circumstance which creates the coincidence. The 
illusion I cannot regard as one of memory, but rather 
as one of apperception or judgment, which is likely 
to occur with persons not accustomed to scientific ob- 
servation. Had the subject been antecedently aware 
that events and experiences preceding those constitut- 
ing the coincidences recorded determined their value 
for or against any hypothesis, it is probable that the 
apperception would have been different. But in the 
absence of any knowledge of such necessary precau- 
tions the common mind very naturally seizes upon the 
events contiguous in time and apparently relevant to 
the one which they seem to portend, and the defect, 

54 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND COINCIDENCES 

even if complicated with some dissociation, is mainly 
one of apperception occasioned by the very keenness 
of the memory for the incidents of the past which can 
be made to appear significant. Moreover, it is prob- 
able that the more striking coincidental automatisms 
and the memory of them had much influence upon 
the recall of the feelings about fire and apperceptively 
distorted their significance, so that much more than 
illusions of memory, in fact, phenomena much more 
important than they, have to be reckoned with in the 
treatment of such reports as the coincidences in my 
narrative represent. 

To reinforce the view that the defects in such a 
narrative are likely to be something else than illusions 
of memory, I was careful to keep a watch for such 
errors. I have watched for them during the several 
years of my observations in this particular case, and 
have not been able to discover a single one. I have 
found cases of obliviscence, and they have been quite 
interesting as enabling me to discover, by cross- 
questioning the subject, that the source of some of 
the automatisms was an associative resurgence into 
consciousness of a past experience, taking the form of 
an hallucination without recognition. But when 
recognition was made I have found no reason to be- 
lieve that an illusion of memory had occurred. But at 
the same time this pious opinion of mine can go for 
very little value to the outside reader. Hence I have 
presented nothing here which I did not seek to cor- 
roborate by another witness, which in this case is Mr. 
D. I had also an indirect opportunity to confirm this 
conclusion. The story by Mrs. G., a neighbor of 

55 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

the D.'s, was the occasion of it. I ascertained the 
facts of Mrs. G.'s experiences, as above narrated, 
from her own statements, and found that they were 
exactly as told me by Mrs. D. This instance afforded 
me a good chance to test Mrs, D.'s value as a wit- 
ness and the confirmation of my impression about her 
in this respect, and serves, at least negatively, as an 
injunction to look far more deeply into such narra- 
tives of striking experiences than the possibility of 
mnemonic illusions suggests. 

In the investigation of the neighbor's, Mrs. G.'s, 
experience which was told as if it might be taken as 
premonitory, I came across an interesting fact that 
confirms the whole position here taken. I inquired, 
as usual, to know whether similar fears about fire had 
been common, and besides a number of instances of 
such fear, I was told of one which Mrs. G. described 
as quite a remarkable * presentiment.' To make a 
long story short, she described the discovery of smoke 
in the hall and the suspicion of danger from fire, and 
after warning her neighbor of her fear she had 
finally to call in an officer of the law to interfere, and 
found that her conjecture was correct. Here is a 
case where the only difference between the psychologist 
and the common mind is the choice of language. 
' Presentiment ' is the term chosen to express an in- 
ference, a fact that reveals the frequent need for in- 
vestigation into the mental habits of the individual 
in order to discover the real explanation of phenomena 
that often appear remarkable. This conclusion, how- 
ever, is not a new one, but perhaps very trite. Never- 
theless, when psychical research presents such an 

56 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND COINCIDENCES 

enormous mass of facts as its reports represent, it is 
incumbent on the critic to subject some equally good 
cases to the analysis of a personal investigation, and 
not to rely exclusively upon general principles in- 
ductively obtained from incidents that make his argu- 
ment seem a priori. The criticism should be based 
upon strictly analogous incidents. 

The automatism, " The end is not yet," gets its in- 
terpretation from the apparently symbolic dream in 
which E. was included with the sister, who died, as 
separated from the mother. That it should have any 
meaning at all is an afterthought or apperception 
created by the coincidental character of instances 
more suggestive than it and taken with the remem- 
bered fact that Mrs. D. has often felt that E. might 
be taken by the trolley cars. There is an aspect to 
this incident that makes it like those which I have ex- 
plained by suggested automatism, though it should 
be remarked that the narrative does not make it any- 
thing more than an association which is very common 
in the city where the family lives. The only feature 
about the impression that seems to give it possible 
meaning is the fact that the same feeling of fear did 
not and does not occur in reference to the older boy, 
L. Hence taking the automatism, " The end is not 
yet," and the symbolic dream with this impression 
it might be natural for the untrained psychologist, 
especially in connection with a large number of coin- 
cidental experiences not mentioned in the present nar- 
rative, to wonder whether the circumstance might not 
have an extraordinary interest. On inquiry again, 
however, I found that Mrs. D. had more confidence in 

57 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

the ability of L. to take care of himself than in E. 
The older, L., is more independent and self-reliant 
than E. and has thus been better able to take care of 
himself. E. has always shown a disposition to de- 
pend on his mother, and she a solicitude for him that 
she has not felt for L. Now, if we put together the 
anxiety which every mother in this particular city 
feels for her children who are exposed to the dangers 
of the trolley cars, Mrs. D.'s special concern for E., 
and more particularly her liability to automatisms, 
we have mental conditions that strongly favor the 
occurrence of impressions which might be taken for 
warnings of a premonitory kind with those who have 
felt the touch of sorrow in connection with such a 
collection of coincidences as I have here recorded. It 
must be remembered, however, that Mrs. D. has never 
believed in premonitions or presentiments, so that the 
discovery of the coincidences was not wholly a product 
of apperception due to a tendency to seek for them 
in the afterthoughts. On the contrary, for the first 
time in her life, she and Mr. D. were amazed at the 
extraordinary character of the incidents in this narra- 
tive, in spite of some coincidences of another kind and 
interest which I have put on record elsewhere, and 
came to me to ascertain whether I had any ordinary 
explanation for them. Afterthought and appercep- 
tion being shut out as inadequate to the result, even 
after allowance is made for their participation in it, 
we find, I think, evidence of an extraordinary combi- 
nation of emotional interests and a predisposition to 
automatisms to simulate supernormal phenomena. 
Reference to the narrative, which shows such a cu- 
58 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND COINCIDENCES 

mulative mass of incidents at least apparently in fa- 
vor of premonition and spiritistic theories, will show 
that I have suggested a normal explanation for the 
majority of them, and only a few have been omitted 
from review. The incident of the sister of Mrs. D. 
hardly requires notice, as I have not been able to 
apply the method of studying her mental habits, and 
it may be too vague to deserve consideration. It was 
mentioned because it at least simulated the collective 
character of incidents in the psychical research rec- 
ords, and in order to give the case all the superficial 
cogency of which it was capable. But it must run 
the gauntlet of the method applied to the other inci- 
dents before any interest of an extraordinary kind is 
attached to it. On the other hand, I confess that I 
have not found any satisfactory explanation of the 
repeated automatism, " She'll never need them." But 
if I have broken the cumulative force of the whole 
by presenting a possible explanation of the majority 
of the most strikingly spiritistic cases, we may well 
suspend judgment upon this one unexplained incident. 
The main point has been gained if I have shown that 
no extraordinary amount of illusion and hallucination 
is required to explain such phenomena, but that they 
may be made to yield to a critical analysis of the in- 
dividual experience and the usual processes of mind. 
Consequently, while we may both admit and urge the 
importance of the position taken by Parish, we may 
reserve to scepticism and scientific method a resource 
much more far-reaching and effective than his, and, 
when his either breaks down or proves too much by 
casting doubts upon the accepted authenticity, 

59 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

methods and results of previous science. If the lia- 
bility to mnemonic illusion and hallucination be half 
so great in such phenomena as Parish criticises, and 
they certainly are great, we should have to revise the 
results of previous psychology more than the critics of 
psychical research are inclined to do. Moreover, I 
am disposed to think that mnemonic illusion is much 
less frequent in extraordinary experiences than in the 
ordinary, while Parish proceeds upon the assumption 
that it is more likely in the former. But we must 
remember that illusion and hallucination are a two- 
edged sword and cut both ways. They will discredit 
the claims of the ordinary at least as much as the 
extraordinary, and I think more. Hence, while ad- 
mitting their extreme importance in all judgments of 
experience, I am inclined to believe that a far pro- 
founder source of difficulty to psychical research can 
be obtained in the field which I have here endeavored 
to explore, and certainly one left open after the other 
fails. It is a resource, also, that can be employed 
only by abandoning all arrogant pretensions to a 
priori knowledge about such phenomena, and by con- 
descending to study the individual case at first hand. 



60 



CHAPTER III 

" FEOM INDIA TO THE PLANET MAES " 

The fairies could not have pleased Alice in Won- 
derland more than M. Flournoy's book on the medium- 
ship of Mile. Smith will please two classes of readers. 
Those who are looking for romances dealing with 
the interest in another world can read this book with 
unabated fascination, if they can manage to shake off 
all scientific encumbrances, and if they can escape 
the author's explanation of his phenomena. On the 
other hand, the sceptic and scientific devotee can read 
it with the malicious delight of an iconoclast bent on 
demolishing the gods of the spiritualist. " From 
India to the Planet Mars " is a book that has appeared 
just at the psychological moment. The public has 
been prepared by the work of the Society for 
Psychical Research, and more especially by the Piper 
phenomena and Dr. Richard Hodgson's report on 
them, to expect some sort of a scientific revelation re- 
garding another life, and hence to find a work appear 
immediately on a voyage of discovery in a portion of 
interstellar space, with the accompaniment of sur- 
vival after death, is an incident well calculated to 
stimulate the imagination beyond all bounds. In- 
deed, the situation in the psychological world, of the 
unscientific sort, as met by this book, may be com- 
pared in some respects to the age of Columbus, and 
M. Flournoy's book to that of Defoe on the adven- 

61 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

tures of Robinson Crusoe, except that Flournoy care- 
fully dispels the illusions which he conjures up in the 
name of spiritualism. Both the title and the subject 
matter suggest this comparison. 

It is always the unknown, accompanied by the con- 
viction that there is a reality in it to be reduced to 
the known, that offers the most attractive field of in- 
terest and exploration to the human mind, and it mat- 
ters not whether it is inspected by the philosopher, 
the scientist, the religious devotee, the litterateur, or 
the common man. All can revel in it with equal im- 
punity and delight. The discovery of Columbus 
found the human mind in this condition. The ex- 
istence of a new world was itself a romance, and truth 
could easily compete with fiction in the supplies which 
new knowledge and hope offered to an insatiable 
curiosity. Homer and his creations were disappearing 
in the limbo of mythology, and men were fast becom- 
ing accustomed to the prosaic life of facts, made all 
the more uninteresting by the increased struggle for 
existence due to an increased population. Hence, a 
new world dawned upon hope and imagination as a 
refuge from the problems of civilization and a stimu- 
lus to the unwearied flight which the human mind is 
wont to take on the wings of poetry and fiction. 

Now, psychical research, even though it may not 
have accomplished as much in the way of discovery as 
Columbus, certainly holds out definite hopes and 
promises to human interest. It has kept the religious 
mind on the qui vive for evidence of its most precious 
belief, while it has offered to some sceptical convic- 
tions a refuge from despair. M. Flournoy has taken 

62 



" FROM INDIA TO THE PLANET MARS 

advantage of this psychological situation, even though 
he expects to disenchant it, and has couched his work 
in terms that must tempt the wary and unwary alike 
into the labyrinths of a new world. The ordinary 
spiritualist, however, is walking into a spider's parlor 
when he accepts this invitation. The book is a thor- 
ough piece of scientific work in most of its aspects, 
especially in its exposure of the spiritistic claims ad- 
vanced for his medium. It leaves little to be desired 
for the sceptic. The title simply invites you into a 
fairy land, while the discussion reduces you relent- 
lessly to the commonplaces of ordinary life and illu- 
sion. Nothing can rival the painstaking care with 
which the author has run down every clue upon which 
spiritism might rely for its support. 

The case is this. M. Flournoy, Professor of 
Psychology in Geneva, Switzerland, heard of one of 
the usual marvels in the circles of spiritism; and, not 
having any foolish dignities to respect, was not long 
in obtaining an introduction to the little coterie which 
was " investigating " the mediumship of a lady whom 
he denominates by the pseudonym " Mile. Smith." 
She was found to be a lady of considerable intelli- 
gence, of irreproachable character, honest and sin- 
cere, and ready to submit her phenomena to investiga- 
tion. M. Flournoy even says that she is beautiful, 
and that she accepts no payment for her experiments. 
Both of these qualities ought to attract the attention 
of the scientific mind. Mile. Smith goes into a trance 
and purports to be controlled by a spirit who calls 
himself Leopold, and claims to have been Joseph Bal- 
samo, the hero of a book by Alexandre Dumas, but 

S3 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

who is better known in history as the famous Caglios- 
tro. Besides him, there appear the unfortunate 
Queen, Marie Antoinette, a Hindu princess of the fif- 
teenth century, and a young man who claims to be 
reincarnated on the planet Mars. The last-named 
individual gives the language which, he claims, is 
spoken on that planet, detailing both the alphabet 
from which it is constructed and its interpretation in 
French. He describes the manners of life there, and 
draws representations of the houses in which its peo- 
ple live and specimens of the animal and vegetable or- 
ganisms there prevalent. All of this has a most de- 
lightful flavor of romance, and it is given in a detail 
which cannot be expected here. The reader must go 
to the original or to the translation for a satisfactory 
account of the facts. The latter is fortunately acces- 
sible, and, I must say, has been unusually well done. 
The only exception that can be taken to it regards the 
abbreviation of the original, which is a misfortune for 
the scientific mind that is either unable or has not the 
time to examine the fuller account in French. To the 
one or the other, however, I must refer the reader for 
one of the most extraordinary books of the day, so 
well calculated is it to exact attention for the obscure 
phenomena of psychical research from those who have 
hitherto been content to play the part of scientific 
Philistines. 

In all its external features, at least, the case is like 
the many instances of alleged spirit control. Mile. 
Smith is wholly unconscious of what she does and illus- 
trates in a remarkable degree what subconscious men- 
tation can do to imitate the requirements of reality. 

64 



" FBOM INDIA TO THE PLANET MAES " 

The impersonations take the form of alleged reincar- 
nations. It seems that spiritualism expresses itself 
in France in terms of that doctrine. The author dis- 
cusses three types of it, the Martian, the Royal, and 
the Hindu cycles. Each represents a very plausible 
appearance ; but only one of them, the Hindu instance, 
offers any serious difficulty to explanation by the 
author along the lines of normal psychology and 
psychiatry. The alleged reincarnation on the planet 
Mars is a remarkable production; that of Marie An- 
toinette is much less interesting. The Hindu rein- 
carnation appears the most real, as it contains some 
features calculated to satisfy the demands of personal 
identity, though explicable by stretching the hypoth- 
esis of resurrected memories. In other words, ex- 
amination showed that there was not the slightest evi- 
dence that spirits had anything to do with the produc- 
tion of the phenomena, but that they were the uncon- 
scious production of Mile. Smith's own mind in the 
trance condition, playing on the obscure recollections 
of her own experience and receiving its impulse to 
do this from her normal conviction that her case was 
spiritistic. 

The alleged inhabitant of Mars shows few, if any, 
resources in Mile. Smith's memory except the most 
general outlines, but the impersonation is exceedingly 
rich in the material of spontaneous fabrication. In 
fact, this particular case is nothing but " the baseless 
fabric of a dream." The language, alphabet, repre- 
sentations of houses, animals and plants are shown to 
be unquestionably nothing but the production of Mile. 
Smith's imagination in this unconscious state, worked 

G5 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

out with marvelous originality and consistency. The 
products find their exact analogy in ordinary dreams. 
The language betrays its spurious character in its 
constructive resemblance to the French which is Mile. 
Smith's native tongue. Besides, there is not a vestige 
of anything leading to the identity of the person who 
claims this reincarnation on the planet Mars, and 
nothing otherwise that is plausible or probable. It is 
simply a pretty creation of the subliminal imagina- 
tion, bent on producing something sufficiently unlike 
terrestrial realities to deceive the unwary; and it is 
one of the most appalling things in nature for the 
psychologist and moralist to be thus confronted with 
the devilish tendencies of unconscious mental action. 
We can hold the normal consciousness responsible, but 
the subconsciousness never. It seems constrained to 
fool us, but is not astute enough to accomplish its 
aim. It has, in this instance, however, played a 
wonderful game, whose trickery it is the merit of M. 
Flournoy to have exposed. 

The impersonation of Marie Antoinette is less re- 
markable in all its superficial characteristics. It has 
no features which are not easily explicable by the 
resurrection of Mile. Smith's own knowledge of that 
unfortunate queen's history, and the influence of idea- 
tion upon the histrionic representation of that queen's 
manners and character. 

M. Flournoy confesses to some inexplicable phe- 
nomena in the Hindu impersonation. There are 
traces of the Hindu language and some remote his- 
torical incidents of a very early period that cannot 
be ascribed to the " medium's " fabricating imagina- 

66 



FROM INDIA TO THE PLANET MARS 

tion. The supposition that Mile. Smith had at some 
time heard or seen enough of the facts, now wholly 
forgotten and unrecognizable when produced, and 
cropping up unconsciously as spirit messages, seems 
so improbable or difficult of proof that M. Flournoy 
admits being puzzled. But the entire success with 
which he discredits the alleged Martian phenomena, 
lends its support to the probability that the Hindu 
impersonation is precisely like it. For me it is not 
specially puzzling at all. I think that his theory of 
secondary personality is more easily applied to the 
Hindu case than the author supposes. Apparently, 
it is the improbability that Mile. Smith had seen or 
read the book in which the facts are found that ex- 
cites M. Flournoy's wonder. But, as the amount of 
the Hindu language delivered is very small, and the 
historical incidents mentioned in that princess' life are 
very few, it is easy to imagine the reading enough of 
it in some catalogue, newspaper, or article to account 
for their appearance in this pseudo-spiritistic form. 
But what is so delightful in M. Flournoy's work is 
his scientific appreciation of the psychological prob- 
lem before him, and the thorough way in which he 
has proceeded to deal with it, at least in all respects 
that concern the claims of spiritism. Nothing can 
equal the patience and perseverance with which he has 
pursued every clue to an explanation of the 
phenomena in terms of what we know in normal 
psychology. The incidents that would strike the or- 
dinary mind as mysterious, or even miraculous, are 
easily reduced to simple and well-known phenomena 
of mind. Every nook and corner of the case is in- 

67 



PSYCHICAL, RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

vestigated, and no stone is left unturned for vestiges 
of subconscious mental action on the part of Mile. 
Smith to account for the facts, and the success is as 
great as the effort. In so far as the evidence is con- 
cerned, the spiritist is left without any support for 
his theory. All this is accompanied with a most de- 
lightful sense of humor and a keen irony that might 
be called malicious, if it were not so just and the 
victims of it so deserving of this polite form of ridi- 
cule. There is apparent in some of it a suppressed 
feeling of ridicule that may be due to the necessity 
of being respectful toward the people whose kindness 
was instrumental in securing an opportunity to in- 
vestigate the case. The style of presentation is most 
charming. In fact, the work is an excellent novel in 
all but the facts, and, in these, it is science of the best 
kind, wherever it applies psychological analysis to 
the refutation of spiritism. In this respect, it is be- 
yond praise, and should be read by every man who is 
tempted to dabble in that subject. 

Its chief interest, however, lies in the influence that 
it must exert upon the general course of psychical 
research. That subject has been so ignored and mis- 
understood by the scientific Philistine that he could 
not be persuaded by any important fact to touch it. 
He passed it by on the other side, holding his nose, or 
sneering at its alleged phenomena. But M. Flournoy 
has taught this supercilious class a lesson. He has 
shown that there are phenomena which have all the 
external characteristics of discarnate spirits, and yet 
are amenable to explanation without such a resource, 
though only on the condition that the most amazing 

68 



" FBOM INDIA TO THE PLANET MARS " 

subconscious mental activity be admitted, and ad- 
mitted in a form that shows no trace of an automatic 
character. The outcome it will be interesting to 
watch. I shall expect the scientific Philistine to ac- 
cept the book with great applause, as it affords such a 
fine text with which to lecture spiritualism. Psychical 
research will become at once a very important de- 
partment of investigation. 

Scepticism, of course, is most welcome in this sub- 
ject which leads so close to the madhouse, but what a 
comment on the pretended scientific spirit, that it will 
give no quarter to a subject until its own precon- 
ceived opinions have been substantiated by some one 
who has not stood on his dignity in regard to the 
facts. 

But, in spite of M. Flournoy's emphatic rejection 
of spiritism, he believes in telepathy, or thought trans- 
ference, telekinesis, or the movement of physical ob- 
jects without contact, and lucidity, or clairvoyance! 
It is apparent, however, that he does not rely wholly 
upon the phenomena of Mile. Smith for his convictions 
on these subjects. He seems to indorse telepathy on 
the collective evidence published by the Society for 
Psychical Research, and telekinesis upon personal ex- 
periments with Eusapia Palladino. Clairvoyance he 
seems to adopt without any evidence that I can dis- 
cover, and he combines telepathy and clairvoyance to 
explain some of his own facts, which he fears might 
otherwise be amenable to the spiritistic theory. But 
there is something very strange in this acceptance of 
these supernormal phenomena, though M. Flournoy 
does not regard them as supernormal at all ! He puts 

69 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

a very peculiar meaning on this term. He speaks as 
if it were convertible with the supernatural. He con- 
siders these processes as perfectly natural, and in the 
case of telepathy speaks of it as something rather to 
be expected than doubted! You would suppose that 
the " supernormal " sustained the same relation to the 
" normal " that hyperesthesia sustains to aesthesia ; 
but no, it is made equivalent to the supernatural, and 
this assumption simply annihilates all rational per- 
spective in the case. Let us examine his position in 
regard to these several remarkable powers, which he 
attributes so easily to the human mind without sup- 
posing them to be anything more than normal and 
natural. 

It must be conceded, at the outset, that M. Flour- 
noy has investigated and analyzed the facts bearing 
upon these hypotheses with something like the same 
method and care that he did those claiming to be spir- 
itistic; but he is, nevertheless, distinctively less cau- 
tious in his convictions. He appears to be so ready 
to accept these theories as natural and normal, that he 
finds no such reason to be sceptical as he supposes is 
obligatory in regard to spiritism. Take, for in- 
stance, his indorsement of Eusapia Palladino. He 
does not state a single fact in proof of her genuine- 
ness. We have only the author's ipse dixit. This is 
all the more amazing after Dr. Richard Hodgson's 
exposure of that clever fraud. No case of that kind 
should be admitted without letting us into the knowl- 
edge of the facts. Of course, it can be said that it is 
no part of the present work to discuss her phenomena. 
But this, taken in connection with her exposure, is all 

70 



" FROM INDIA TO THE PLANET MARS 

the more reason for silence unless good evidence be- 
yond an ipse dixit be produced. A theory based upon 
experiments with Eusapia Palladino, and designed to 
explain some of the phenomena observed in the case 
of Mile. Smith, should come with far better creden- 
tials than are here offered. The author's illusion 
about the " natural " betrays him, in this instance, 
into a disposition to credit phenomena that are far 
more revolutionary in physical science than spirits 
can possibly be either in physics or psychology. The 
reason for this judgment I shall give again. 

Let us examine M. Flournoy's example of telekin- 
esis in the case of Mile. Smith. Two oranges were 
found removed from their places, under circumstances 
involving either the dishonesty or the mal-observation 
of the witnesses, as alternatives to explanation by 
telekinesis. M. Flournoy offers the choice between 
these hypotheses and the subconscious action of Mile. 
Smith; though it is evident that he inclines to tele- 
kinesis. This is fair enough ; but I am amazed to find 
that no such care is taken to examine the facts and 
their conditions as was shown when exposing the 
claims of Leopold, Marie Antoinette and the myste- 
rious Martian. There are two ineradicable defects in 
the author's treatment of the case here. First, he is 
apparently ready to attach weight to mere testimony, 
and that of the parties interested in their theory. 
Secondly, he has not applied carefully to the phenom- 
ena his own hypothesis of secondary personality, while 
that supposition seems to me entirely adequate to its 
explanation. M. Flournoy does not give us the full 
details, as they should be given in so important a 

71 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

matter. We should know the exact amount of time 
involved in the occurrence of the phenomena, the occu- 
pation of the witnesses, their position in the room and 
in relation to Mile. Smith, their capacities for observ- 
ing facts of this sort, and every little incident bear- 
ing upon a complete record of the observed facts. 
But there is not a word of this, and apparently no 
conception of the necessity for such details. It is all 
the more remarkable, after the author's scepticism of 
his witnesses' testimony for spiritism, that he should 
be less stringent in his methods when it is only a mat- 
ter of telekinesis! Evidently, this is so natural and 
normal a process that it does not need careful verifica- 
tion. Moreover, after observing, in other connec- 
tions, the readiness with which Mile. Smith passes into 
and out of a trance without retaining any memory of 
it, why does not M. Flournoy refer to this fact as 
probably affording a clue to the explication of the 
case? Let me mention the instance of his walk with 
Mile. Smith, in which she went into a trance, sug- 
gested visiting the house of a friend, and awakened to 
know nothing of it and feeling very much embarrassed 
at her action. A better instance of this is that of 
writing a letter. She sat down to write a note to M. 
Flournoy, and in the midst of it passed off into a 
trance, and finished the letter in the language and in- 
cidents of one of the subconscious personalities. She 
mailed it, and never knew anything regarding this 
latter part of the letter until the fact was called to 
her attention by M. Flournoy. 

Now, it would be easy to apply the same causes 
and conditions to the explanation of the throwing of 

72 



" FROM INDIA TO THE PLANET MARS 

the oranges, especially in the absence of all adequate 
accounts of the circumstances, and it is surprising 
that a man of M. Flournoy's usual scientific acuteness 
has not seen this. What is to hinder us from suppos- 
ing that Mile. Smith suddenly passed into the trance 
(a fact which M. Flournoy records over and over 
again), and threw the oranges without being noticed 
by the other persons in the room, and then awoke 
without any knowledge of her actions? M. Flour- 
noy makes a few general observations in the direction 
of such an hypothesis, but he does not urge it with 
the enthusiasm displayed in applying the same theory 
against spiritism. He seems to think that telekinesis 
does not exact any serious objection from belief. As 
for myself, I must say that I do not think there is one 
iota of rational evidence for any such phenomena, and 
I should regard it as much more exposed to scientific 
objections than spiritism, which he is at so much pains 
to disprove. The same can be said of clairvoyance. 
I have never seen any adequate evidence of such a 
power, and I think M. Flournoy is persuaded to ac- 
cept it much more because he thinks it a weapon with 
which to combat spiritism than on the grounds of 
scientific evidence. 

I come next to his consideration of telepathy. He 
recognizes that this doctrine is not accepted by the 
scientific world in any form whatever, but he does 
not flinch under this. His attitude, however, toward 
scepticism regarding it is very curious. He expresses 
surprise that any one should have difficulties regard- 
ing it. This process which the scientific world scouts 
as absurd, as revolutionary in both physics and 

73 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

psychology, and as supernormal in every sense of the 
word, M. Flournoy regards as very probable a priori. 
Psychical research ought to be very easy after such 
a verdict as this. It seems not even necessary to 
strain at camels. At any rate, the psychical re- 
searcher can stand and look on with a malicious smile, 
while the sceptic proclaims without evidence that telep- 
athy is a very probable thing and one of the most 
natural things in the world. The plight of M. Flour- 
noy's admirers here will be amusing, if they have 
laughed at the claims of telepathy. They are called 
on to be very sceptical if the phenomena claim to be 
spiritistic, but very credulous if they are only tele- 
pathic, telekinetic, or clairvoyant! 

I must say, however, that I do not share M. Flour- 
noy's tractable disposition regarding telepathy. I 
do not think it intrinsically probable, nor easy to be- 
lieve on any evidence but that afforded by the most 
careful experiments. At its very best, it is nothing 
more than a name for coincidences, whose cause and 
explanation are yet to be determined. The popular 
mind makes it a most extraordinary power. It is 
endowed with unlimited access to the person's memory 
whose mind is read. But there is no adequate evi- 
dence for such a process : in fact, there is not one iota 
of respectable evidence for it. The only telepathy 
that can lay the slightest claim to recognition on 
scientific grounds, is the transmission of present active 
states of consciousness ; and, in fact, it is probably 
the psychical researchers alone who admit this much. 
But such a thing as the selective telepathy necessary 
to reproduce personal identity is without any experi- 

74 



" FROM INDIA TO THE PiLANET MAES *' 

mental support. Consequently, when a man uses the 
term, he must show that he is able to meet its respon- 
sibilities. M. Flournoy does nothing of this kind. 
He says enough to discredit telepathy of all kinds in 
his treatment of the only facts in his case that could 
possibly lay any claim to that explanation, and yet 
considers it something that may be taken for granted 
apparently without evidence. But that a man can 
sit down and gravely assume, without experimental 
proof, a sort of infinite access by some subliminal pro- 
cess to the memories of any living mind that the tele- 
pathic subject chooses to select, and yet claim to be 
scientific, is something that transcends my idea of 
science. I do not see why a man should take offense 
at spiritism after such a leap as that. 

It all comes from the baseless assumption that 
spirits are supernatural and telepathy natural. I 
can conceive the very reverse of this, namely, that 
telepathy should be considered supernatural and spirits 
natural. M. Flournoy ought to know that modern 
idealism makes all talk about the natural as useless 
as the supernatural. When everything is natural, 
the term has no explanatory value whatever. In 
Greek thought, when the term was convertible with 
the physical and opposed to the immaterial, it had 
some importance ; but, the moment that it became con- 
vertible with the uniform or invariably constant, it 
lost its value as an instrument for supporting a ma- 
terialistic and mechanical view of the cosmos. But 
to me telepathy, even in the only form that has any 
scientific, or alleged scientific, credentials, so far from 
being natural in any accepted use of that term as a 

75 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

name for the constant and uniform, is so exceptional 
as simply to throw the reins loose to the maddest sort 
of philosophic speculation. 

But let us concede with M. Flournoy that telepathy 
is " natural " and spirits " supernatural." How can 
he oppose telepathy to spiritism, unless he qualifies it 
with the power to effect all that might most rationally 
be attributed to spirits? I make bold to say that 
there are conditions under which a spiritistic theory is 
easier to believe than the telepathic. These condi- 
tions are that the contents of what purport to be dis- 
carnate communications be appropriate to the proof 
of personal identity. We should, of course, prefer to 
know something of the process by which the limita- 
tions of our access to a transcendental world can be 
overcome. But, as we must inductively form our 
hypothesis in any case, all suppositions to bridge 
this chasm must stand on the same footing ; and, if the 
unity of the phenomena is best represented by infer- 
ring the continuance of an individual consciousness 
after death, we may consider the process of communi- 
cation to be what we please. Besides, even as a con- 
ceded process telepathy is not anything that is known 
in the usual sense of that term. It is only a name for 
certain facts which require a causal explanation. It 
is convenient for limiting evidential claims, but it is 
not explanatory. But now, if telepathy be once 
granted as a fact, no matter what conception we take 
of it as a process, we have a phenomenon of the trans- 
mission of thought independently of the ordinary im- 
pressions of sense, and we should be violating no sci- 
entific principles if we supposed that, under favorable 

76 



" FEOM INDIA TO THE PLANET MARS " 

conditions, a transcendental consciousness might be 
able to intromit a message into a living mind. After 
telepathy is admitted, it is but a question of evidence 
to settle whether we are probably in communication 
with a discarnate spirit. If the phenomena alleged to 
be spirit messages represent what the proof of per- 
sonal identity demands, a discarnate consciousness is 
the most natural supposition in the case. This con- 
ception of the matter is strongly reinforced by the 
fact that telepathy between the living, so far as we 
have any right to assume it at all, is limited to the 
present active states of consciousness, and shows no 
tendency to select its data with reference to the repro- 
duction of personal identity, with its synthetic char- 
acter and command of memory. With that limita- 
tion, we should have to suppose the continuance of 
consciousness after death to explain the facts. With- 
out that limitation, we have a theory infinitely larger 
than the spiritistic, and wholly without any analogies 
in either physics or psychology. Hence, on a priori 
grounds, I see no reason for assuming any antagon- 
ism between the telepathic and the spiritistic theories. 
Once assumed, unless its limits are defined, telepathy 
becomes an evidential difficulty against the spiritistic 
doctrine; but, when it begins to take on the propor- 
tions of infinitude, it plays into the hands of its com- 
petitor, which conforms to the demand that a process 
shall be finite if it expects scientific recognition. 

But it is precisely because his data do not represent 
any evidence of personal identity that M. Flournoy is 
justified in rejecting the spiritistic theory in his 
special case. It is not because telepathy is either 

77 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

a normal process or a function incompatible with the 
operation of discarnate souls. Leopold, Marie 
Antoinette, and the Martian inhabitant ought to have 
given us some evidence of personal identity, as in the 
" communicators " of the Piper case, if Mile. Smith 
expects us to believe in spirits, and it is their abso- 
lute failure to satisfy this demand that justifies M. 
Flournoy's sceptical position. Had he treated telep- 
athy, telekinesis and clairvoyance in the same spirit, 
no criticism whatever could have been directed against 
his conclusions. But his tolerance of these theories 
and the possible amenability of what may be called 
the Dandiran, the Vignier, and the Burnier incidents 
to a supernormal explanation, as the author appar- 
ently squints toward that possibility owing to the 
conjectural character of the evidence against it, 
might suggest to the spiritist the following hypoth- 
esis. Taking what we know of secondary person- 
ality and its various forms, we might assume it to 
be, as ordinarily known, only a transitional state to 
the conditions which might bring the subject into 
communication with a transcendental world. But it 
would in all cases be most naturally accompanied, on 
this supposition, by all sorts of difficulties and con- 
fusions in the communications from that world, be- 
traying various abilities and inabilities to communi- 
cate, and there might be conditions in which the whole 
impulse to represent the facts as " communications " 
from that source should come from a transcendental 
stimulus, while the representations of the facts should 
come wholly from the subject's own mental action, 
and be distorted, as secondary personality must in- 

78 



" FROM INDIA TO THE PLANET MAES 

evitably distort its data. The whole of the modern 
theory of hallucination supports this view. Hallu- 
cinations are found to be due to what are called 
secondary stimuli — that is, stimuli that are not co- 
ordinated with the sense in which the hallucination 
appears, and so are not representative of the world 
that causes them. In such a process, vestiges of 
spirit messages might slip through, and the conditions 
affecting the possibility of communication present so 
many difficulties that the attempt to deliver anything 
genuine might have to be given up. To illustrate 
from his own case ; if Mile. Smith's secondary person- 
ality can secure its stimulus, but not its representa- 
tions, from her normal memory and experience, or con- 
victions, it is quite conceivable that the same state 
should receive its stimulus, but not its representation 
of the facts, from the transcendental world, while a 
few veridical, though fragmentary, messages of the 
genuine sort might slip through in the fluctuation of 
the conditions embodied in the secondary state. The 
incidents that appear to be supernormal acquisitions 
of knowledge, in the absence of satisfactory proof 
that they are resurrected memories of Mile. Smith's 
childhood, might be instances of this success, obtain- 
able only on opportune occasions, while the conditions 
remain generally impervious to such communications. 
In this way, we might unify the supernormal aspects 
of M. Flournoy's case with those that show such re- 
markable characteristics of secondary personality. 

I am, of course, very far from accepting any such 
view of the case. On the contrary, I think it wholly 
an instance of secondary personality, and that telep- 

79 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

athy, telekinesis, and clairvoyance should have re- 
ceived no tolerance in this book where the evidence for 
them is wholly wanting. But, if M. Flournoy thus 
accepts them, he must expect to meet trouble in his 
disposal of the Dandiran, Vignier, and Burnier inci- 
dents, with which he is evidently impressed, in spite 
of his reference of them to possible memories of his 
medium. So far as his evidence is concerned, these 
theories should have received less tolerance at his 
hands. It is his illusion about their being normal and 
natural that leads him into this course. Moreover, 
for a man who so heartily rejects the supernatural, 
his invocation of sympathy from the orthodox by a 
confession of faith, when he refuses to accept that 
criterion in spiritism and applies the most rigid 
criteria of scientific proof, is a contradiction as well 
as an exhibition of pious cant unworthy of a man who 
claims to respect science. The only hope of the re- 
ligious consciousness, if it is to reconcile itself with 
science, is to be tolerant of spiritism rather than telep- 
athy, telekinesis, and clairvoyance, and to abandon 
the criterion of mere faith for that of scientific proof. 
Hence, having accepted the jurisdiction of a scientific 
court, the author should have bowed to its canons. 

Not to press this criticism, however, the chief im- 
portance of the work lies in its tendency to stimulate 
investigation of a subject that has been too long neg- 
lected. Psychical research has a grim Nemesis and 
scepticism a Medusa head in the author's admission 
of telepathy, telekinesis, and clairvoyance, but this sin 
will not destroy the scientific merits of a work that 
offers our Philistines their only hope of minimizing the 
significance of the Piper phenomena. 

80 



CHAPTER IV 

VISIONS OF THE DYING 

There is a group of psychic phenomena which are 
well worthy of a most searching investigation. I 
refer to the alleged visions which many dying persons 
are said to have had of friends who have passed away 
before them. In some cases they seem to have a co- 
incidental importance that may give them some scien- 
tific value, if well enough attested as facts. 

It would be natural to suppose that the crisis of 
death would often be attended by all sorts of halluci- 
nations. We know how disease and accident lead to 
deliria in which all sorts of hallucinatory experiences 
occur; and narcotics and anaesthetics evoke similar 
phenomena in various degrees. They are but illus- 
trations of influences which disturb the normal activ- 
ity and functions of the organism, so that the non- 
coordination of central functions results in the simula- 
tion of realities by all sorts of phantasmal forms. 
Death is a particularly disintegrating process and 
we should expect similar mental disturbances in its 
progress. Usually the motor functions are so 
paralyzed by it that we should expect little evidences 
of sensory phantasms. One way of indicating what 
dying experiences are in any clear manner, seems pos- 
sible and that is by speech. When this occurs the 
subject must retain enough of his normal motor ac- 
tivity to give expression to his mental experiences. 

81 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

Indistinct indications may be given by motor action 
in the eyes. But what we should discover from ocular 
movements of a dying person would be doubtful and 
possibly capable of various interpretations. It would 
be the same with hearing. But when speech is re- 
tained enough may be uttered for us to ascertain the 
nature of the experience of the dying person, and 
occasionally dying persons utter intelligible sentences 
which convey unusual information. It is such that 
ought to be the subject of a very careful investiga- 
tion. I propose here to suggest that a census of them 
might easily be collected and made the subject of 
statistical study and psychological analysis. 

The interest which such phenomena may have for 
science will depend upon a variety of considerations. 
The first is that we shall be able to attest their exist- 
ence and their nature. The second is that we shall 
have some reason to believe that they have a selective 
character pertinent to their apparent significance. 
The third is that we shall have some means of dis- 
tinguishing them from those capricious and kaleido- 
scope phenomena that are classifiable as ordinary hal- 
lucinations. The fourth is that their characteristics 
shall suggest some coincidental incidents not refer- 
able to chance and at the same time distinguishable 
from others possibly due to subjective causes. It will 
not be an easy task to conduct such an investigation, 
but it is possible by long efforts and perseverance to 
accumulate facts enough for some sort of study and 
analysis. The method of effecting this object will 
be the subject of discussion later in this article. We 



VISIONS OF THE DYING 

must first describe the phenomena to which attention 
needs to be called. 

The phenomena which I have in mind are a type 
of apparition. Whatever their explanation they have 
one characteristic which distinguishes them from ordi- 
nary deliria. They represent the appearance of de- 
ceased persons to the vision, imagination, or other 
source of sensory representation, of the dying per- 
son. If we should find that they bear evidences in 
any case of supernormal information they would 
become especially significant. But one of the most 
important things to study in them would be their rela- 
tion to instances of hallucination under the same cir- 
cumstances that had no coincidental value. That is, 
we need to study their statistical aspects which would 
require a comparison of the really or apparently coin- 
cidental cases with those which are unmistakably hal- 
lucinatory and subjective in their origin. For this a 
large collection is necessary and this can be made with- 
out any presumptions regarding their explanation. 
I shall illustrate the kind which are particularly inter- 
esting and suggestive. They are as described above, 
instances in which dying persons seem to see previously 
deceased friends, claiming in cases to be present for 
the purpose of aiding in the passage of death. When 
this claim of assistance in the crisis of death is made 
it is through mediums and it is sometimes or generally 
made when there has been no evidence at the death 
scene that such a presence was remarked. I shall 
give a few illustrations of both kinds. 

The following instance I received from a corres- 
83 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

pondent whose testimony I have no reason to ques- 
tion: 

" I called this afternoon (May 14th, 1906) upon a 
lady who buried a nine-year-old boy two weeks ago. 
The child had been operated upon for appendicitis 
some two or three years ago, and had had peritonitis 
at the same time. He recovered, and was apparently 
quite well for a time. Again he was taken sick, and 
from the first the doctor thinks he did not expect to 
get well. He was taken to the hospital, and operated 
upon. He was perfectly rational, recognizing his 
parents, the doctor, and the nurse, after coming out 
from under the influence of the anaesthetic. Feel- 
ing that he was going, he asked his mother to hold his 
hands, until he should be gone. He had, I forgot to 
say, been given strong stimulants after the operation, 
which, I suppose, made his mind very active. 

Soon he looked up and said, " Mother, dear, don't 
you see little sister over there? " 

" No, where is she? " 

" Right over there. She is looking at me." 

Then the mother, to pacify him, said she saw the 
child. In a few minutes, his face lighted up full of 
smiles, and he said : — 

" There comes Mrs. C (a lady of whom he 

was very fond who had died nearly two years before), 
and she is smiling just as she used to. She is smiling 
and wants me to come." In a few moments : — 

" There is Roy ! I'm going to them. I don't 
want to leave you, but you'll come to me soon, won't 
you? Open the door and let them in. They are 
waiting for me outside," and he was gone. 

" No, I forgot to tell about his grandmother. I 
34 



VISIONS OP THE DYING 

gathered the impression that he did not know his 
maternal grandmother, but may be wrong. 

" As his mother held his hands, he said : " How 
small you are growing. Are you still holding my 
hands? Grandma is larger than you, isn't she? 
There she is. She is larger, isn't she? Her hand is 
larger than yours. She is holding one hand and her 
hand is larger than yours. 

" Remember that the boy was but nine years old. 
Did he really see spirits and recognize them? Or 
was it the result of the highly sensitive condition of 
the brain caused by the medicine? " 

The mother confirms this narrative and inquiry 
brings out the following facts. The boy had never 
known his grandmother who had died twenty years 
ago. His sister had died four years before his own 
birth. Roy is the name of a friend of the child and 
he had died about a year previous. 

It will be apparent that the instance is not in any 
respect an evidential one. There is no way to displace 
the assumption that the phenomena were hallucina- 
tions until better indications of their real nature can 
be obtained by further investigations, if that can ever 
be done. It is natural to suppose that the critical 
condition of the mind and body would give rise to 
these and similar phantasms, especially in certain kinds 
of natures. The natural assumption may not be the 
right one, but it is the only one that science can tol- 
erate until its credentials are better satisfied by evi- 
dences of the supernormal. There is nothing in 
this instance that can be verified as not a natural and 

85 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

subjective effect of the conditions associated with 
dissolution, unless it be the systematic group of de- 
ceased persons involved. For the physiologist and the 
psychologist this goes without saying, and the men- 
tion of it here is only to emphasize for the general 
reader the confident opinion which science would en- 
tertain regarding such incidents. Science might not 
have better evidence that this special case is hallucina- 
tion than the believer in its reality has for this 
character, but the mass of facts in human experience 
connected with abnormal mental and physical condi- 
tions associated with disease and death would predis- 
pose any cautious person in favor of the scientific 
interpretation, as either more probable or more safe an 
assumption than that in favor of the other. 

Many other cases of a similar nature have come to 
my attention, but I have not yet been able to have 
a first-hand account made for me. I remember that 
my step-mother told me that her mother, while dying, 
saw an apparition of her husband who had died many 
years before. Such incidents are probably relatively 
numerous, but as they are not recorded or examined 
carefully they can only be subjects of sceptical con- 
sideration. 

But I have a group of incidents which are much 
more suggestive of something unusual and possibly 
quite significant. Some of them involve a record and 
confirmatory support that gives them importance. 
The first of this group is one dictated to me and taken 
down verbatim by the two persons who knew the facts. 
They are both intelligent and trustworthy witnesses, 
not more liable to errors in such things than all of us. 

86 



VISIONS OP THE DYING 

It involved circumstances which give peculiar value to 
the incident, as the story will vouch for itself. I 
quote the narrative as I took it down. 

" Four or five weeks before my son's death Mrs. 
was with me — she was my friend and a 



psychic — and a message was given me that little 
Bright Eyes (control) would be with my son who 
was then ill with cancer. The night before his death 
he complained that there was a little girl about his 
bed and asked who it was. This was at Muskoka, 
160 miles north of Toronto. He had not known what 

Mrs. S had told me. About five minutes before 

his death, he roused, called his nurse for a drink 
of water, and said clearly : " I think they are 
taking me." Afterward seeing the possible signifi- 
cance of this I wrote to Miss A and asked her to 

see Mrs. S and try to find why the word " they " 

was used, underscoring it in the letter, as I al- 
ways supposed the boy's father would be with him 

at death. Miss A went to see Mrs. S , 

and did not mention the letter. When I saw Mrs. 
S more than a week later we were having a sit- 
ting and Guthrie, my son, came and told me how he 
died. He said he was lying on the bed and felt he 
was being lifted out of his body and at that point all 
pain left. His first impulse was to get back into his 
body, but he was being drawn away. He was taken 
up into a cloud and he seemed to be a part of it. His 
feeling was that he was being taken by invisible hands 
into rarified air that was so delightful. He spoke of 
his freedom from pain and said that he saw his father 
beyond." 

87 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

The intimate friendship of Mrs. S — ■ — with Mrs. 

G , the mother of the boy, makes it possible to 

suppose that hints or suggestions may have been un- 
consciously conveyed to the boy before his death, or 
that something was said at the experiment which 
might deprive the incidents of that importance which 
they superficially seem to have. I have, however, 
observed that the two ladies are as careful in their ac- 
count as we should expect, and while I cannot give 
the narrative as much scientific weight as may be 
desirable, I think there is reason to believe that the 
main incidents are correct. The boy's experience of 
a strange girl at his bedside, and the allusion to the 
plural of the pronoun are quite possibly correct ac- 
counts of the facts. A record of the later sitting 
would be necessary to be assured that the allusion to 
the father was not in response to a suggestion. But 
in any case the incident is at least apparently su- 
perior evidentially to the first one quoted, and it indi- 
cates what may be done to assure ourselves of signifi- 
cance in such phenomena. 

I quote next a well authenticated instance on the 
authority of Dr. Minot J. Savage. He records it in 
his Psychic Facts and Theories. He also told me per- 
sonally of the facts and gave me the names and ad- 
dresses of the persons on whose authority he tells the 
incidents. I am not permitted to mention them. But 
the story is as follows : 

" In a neighboring city were two little girls, Jen- 
nie and Edith, one about eight years of age, and the 
other but a little older. They were schoolmates and 
intimate friends. In June, 1889, both were taken ill 



VISIONS OF THE DYING 

of diphtheria. At noon on Wednesday, Jennie died. 
Then the parents of Edith, and her physician as 
well, took particular pains to keep from her the fact 
that her little playmate was gone. They feared the 
effect of the knowledge on her own condition. To 
prove that they succeeded and that she did not know, 
it may be mentioned that on Saturday, June 8th, at 
noon, just before she became unconscious of all that 
was passing about her, she selected two of her photo- 
graphs to be sent to Jennie, and also told her attend- 
ants to bid her goodbye. 

" She died at half -past six o'clock on the evening 
of Saturday, June 8th. She had roused and bidden 
her friends goodbye, and was talking of dying, and 
seemed to have no fear. She appeared to see one 
and another of the friends she knew were dead. So 
far it was like the common cases. But now suddenly, 
and with every appearance of surprise, she turned to 
her father, and exclaimed, ' Why, papa, I am going 
to take Jennie with me ! ' Then she added, ' Why, 
papa! Why, papa! You did not tell me that Jen- 
nie was here ! ' And immediately she reached out her 
arms as if in welcome, and said, ' O, Jennie, I'm so 
glad you are here.' " 

As Dr. Savage remarks in connection with the 
story, it is not so easy to account for this incident by 
the ordinary theory of hallucination. We have to 
suppose a casual coincidence at the same time, and 
while we might suppose this for any isolated case like 
the present one, the multiplication of them, with 
proper credentials, would suggest some other expla- 
nation, whatever it might be. 

I shall turn next to two instances which are asso- 
89 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

ciated with the experiments and records of Mrs. 
Piper. They both represent the allegation of death- 
bed apparitions, and statements through Mrs. Piper 
purporting to represent communications from the de- 
ceased showing a coincidence with what was otherwise 
known or alleged to have taken place at the crisis of 
death. The records in these cases are unusually good, 
having been made by Dr. Richard Hodgson. I quote 
his reports. The first instance is the experience of a 
man who gives only initials for his name, but was 
well known to Dr. Hodgson. It occurred at a sitting 
with Mrs. Piper. 

"About the end of March of last year (1888) I 
made her (Mrs. Piper) a visit — having been in 
the habit of so doing since early in February, about 
once a fortnight. She told me that the death of a 
near relative of mine would occur in about six weeks, 
from which I should realize some pecuniary advan- 
tages. I naturally thought of my father, who was 
in advanced years, and whose description Mrs. Piper 
had given me very accurately a week or two pre- 
viously. She had not spoken of him as my father, 
but merely as a person nearly connected with me. I 
asked her at this sitting whether this person was the 
one who would die, but she declined to state any- 
thing more clearly to me. My wife, to whom I was 
then engaged, went to see Mrs. Piper a few days 
afterward, and she told her (my wife) that my father 
would die in a few weeks. 

About the middle of May my father died very sud- 
denly in London from heart failure, when he was re- 
covering from a very slight attack of bronchitis, and 
on the very day that his doctor had pronounced hini 

90 



VISIONS OF THE DYING 

out of danger. Previous to this Mrs. Piper (as Dr. 
Phinuit) had told me that she would endeavor to in- 
fluence my father about certain matters connected 
with his will before he died. Two days after I re- 
ceived the cable announcing his death my wife and 
I went to see Mrs. Piper, and she (Dr. Phinuit) spoke 
of his presence, and his sudden arrival in the spirit 
world, and said that he (Dr. Phinuit) had endeav- 
ored to persuade him in these matters while my father 
was sick. Dr. Phinuit told me the state of the will, 
and described the principal executor, and said that 
he (the executor) would make a certain disposition 
in my favor, subject to the consent of the other two 
executors when I got to London, England. Three 
weeks afterward I arrived in London and found the 
principal executor to be the man Dr. Phinuit had de- 
scribed. The will went materially as he (Dr. 
Phinuit) had stated. The disposition was made in 
my favor, and my sister, who was chiefly at my 
father's bedside the last three days of his life, told 
me that he had repeatedly complained of the presence 
of an old man at the foot of his bed, who annoyed 
him by discussing his private affairs." 

The reader will remark that the incident is asso- 
ciated with a prediction, but it is not the subject of 
important observation at present. The chief point 
of interest is that the prediction is connected with a 
reference to a will affecting private business matters, 
that the sister reported a number of visions or ap- 
paritions on the man's death-bed, and that subsequent 
to his death, not known apparently to Mrs. Piper, 
the statement was made by Dr. Phinuit that he had in- 
fluenced or tried to persuade the man in reference to 

91 



PSYCHICAL. EESEAECH AND THE EESUERECTION 

these matters. The coincidence is unmistakable and 
the cause is suggested by the very nature of the phe- 
nomena and the conditions under which they occurred. 
But we should have a large mass of such incidents to 
give the hypothesis something like scientific proof. 

The next case is a most important one. It is con- 
nected with an experiment by Dr. Hodgson with Mrs. 
Piper, as was the previous one, and came out as an 
accidental feature of the sitting. The account is 
associated in his report with incidents quoted by him 
in explanation of the difficulty and confusion accom- 
panying real or alleged communications from the 
dead. It will be useful to quote the Report on that 
point before narrating the incident itself, as the cir- 
cumstances associated with the facts are important 
in the understanding of the case, while they also sug- 
gest a view of the phenomena which may explain the 
rarity of them. 

" That persons 4 just deceased,' " says Dr. Hodg- 
son, " should be extremely confused and unable to 
communicate directly, or even at all, seems perfectly 
natural after the shock and wrench of death. Thus 
in the case of Hart, he was unable to write the second 
day after death. In another case a friend of mine, 
whom I may call D., wrote, with what appeared to be 
much difficulty, his name and the words, ' I am all 
right now. Adieu,' within two or three days of his 
death. In another case, F., a near relative of Mad- 
ame Elisa, was unable to write on the morning after 
his death. On the second day after, when a stranger 
was present with me for a sitting, he wrote two 
or three sentences, saying, ' I am too weak to artic- 



VISIONS OF THE DYING 

ulate clearly,' and not many days later he wrote fairly 
well and clearly, and dictated to Madame Elisa (de- 
ceased), as amanuensis, an account of his feelings at 
finding himself in his new surroundings." 

In a footnote Dr. Hodgson adds an account of 
what this Madame Elisa communicated regarding the 
man. I quote this in full. Referring to this F. and 
Madame Elisa, he says : — 

" The notice of his death was in a Boston paper, 
and I happened to see it on my way to the sitting. 
The first writing of the sitting came from Madame 
Elisa, without my expecting it. She wrote clearly 
and strongly, explaining that F. was there with her, 
but unable to speak directly, that she wished to give 
me an account of how she had helped F. to reach 
her. She said that she had been present at his death- 
bed, and had spoken to him, and she repeated what 
she had said, an unusual form of expression, and indi- 
cated that he had heard and recognized her. This was 
confirmed in detail in the only way possible at the 
time, by a very intimate friend of Madame Elisa and 
myself, and also of the nearest surviving relative of 
F. I showed my friend the account of the sitting, 
and to this friend a day or two later, the relative, 
who was present at the death-bed, stated spon- 
taneously that F., when dying said that he saw Mad- 
ame Elisa, who was speaking to him, and he repeated 
what she was saying. The expression so repeated, 
which the relative quoted to my friend, was that 
which I had received from Madame Elisa through 
Mrs. Piper's trance, when the death-bed incident was 
of course entirely unknown to me." 

The apparent significance of such a coincidence is 
93 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

evident, and though the entire number which I have 
quoted are not sufficient to afford alone the proof of 
survival after death they are indicative of events 
which demand a most careful investigation. If there 
be such a thing as a transcendental spiritual world and 
if we actually survive in our personality after death 
we might naturally expect some connection between 
the two sets of cosmic conditions, at least occasionally, 
supposing, of course, that the chasm between them 
is not too great to be spanned. The existence of a 
large mass of facts alleging such a connection, 
though these facts are relatively few in comparison 
with the cases of silence regarding the beyond, is a 
circumstance which would suggest searching for inci- 
dents during the passage of death that might repre- 
sent a rare connection between the two worlds in this 
critical period. We could not expect them to be fre- 
quent a priori, but we should not expect two worlds, 
closely enough related for the individual to retain his 
identity, to wholly exclude communications in articvlo 
mortis. If anything like it actually appeared to 
occur we should endeavor to ascertain how much evi- 
dence exists for the credibility of the occurrence in 
sufficiently numerous cases to establish the truth of 
the actual connection, or to confirm other types of 
incident pointing toward the same conclusion. The 
phenomena are too suggestive in many ways to leave 
their occurrence unnoticed and uninvestigated. 

Professor Bozzano, in the Annals of Psychical Sci- 
ence, gives twenty-two cases in all, three of which 
are found in this discussion. I quote a few of them 
to add to the collective force of the evidence in such 

94* 



VISIONS OF THE DYING 

cases of supernormal experiences. It would be an 
injudicious appropriation of material to reproduce 
the entire essay, but its merit and interest offer a 
great temptation to do so for readers who may not be 
able to see the publication which presents them. I 
must content myself, however, with a choice of the 
best cases in illustration of a more frequent phenom- 
enon than the few instances that I have quoted 
might indicate. The most forcible ones are those 
which may be called collective instances, that is, ap- 
paritions seen by more than one person. 

The first instance is taken from the life of the 
Rev. Dwight L. Moody, the celebrated evangelical 
preacher of the United States, written by his son. 
In it his last moments are described as follows : — 

" Suddenly he murmured : * Earth recedes, heaven 
opens up before me. I have been beyond the gates. 
God is calling. Don't call me back. It is beautiful. 
It is like a trance. If this is death it is sweet.' 

Then his face lit up and he said in a voice of joy- 
ful rapture : * Dwight ! Irene ! I see the chil- 
dren's faces ' (referring to two little grandchildren, 
gone before). Turning to his wife he said, 
' Mamma, you have been a good wife to me,' and with 
that he became unconscious." 

Mr. Alfred Smedley, on pp. 50 and 51 of his book, 
Some Reminiscences, gives the following description 
of the last moments of his own wife : — 

" A short time before her decease, her eyes being 
fixed on something that seemed to fill her with pleas- 
ant surprise, she exclaimed : ' Why ! there is sister 

95 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

Charlotte here; and mother and father and brother 
John and sister Mary ! And now they have brought 
Bessie Heap ! ! They are all here. Oh ! how beauti- 
ful ! Cannot you see them ? ' she asked. ' No, my 
dear ; I very much wish I could,' I answered. ' Can- 
not you see them ? ' she again asked in surprise : ' why 
they are all here, and they are come to bear me away 
with them. Part of our family have crossed the flood, 
and soon the other part will be gathered home, and 
then we shall be a family complete in heaven.' 

" I may explain here that Bessie Heap had been 
the trusted family nurse, and my wife had always 
been a favorite with her. 

" After the above ecstatic experience she lingered 
for some time. Then fixing her gaze steadily upward 
again, and lifting up her hands, she joined the con- 
voy of angel friends who had come to usher her into 
that brighter spiritual world of which we had learned 
so little." 

Dr. Paul Edwards wrote as follows in April, 1900, 
to the Editor of Light: — 

" While living in a country town in California (U. 
S. A.) about the year 1887, I was called upon to visit 
a very dear lady friend who was very low and weak 
from consumption. Everyone knew that this pure 
and noble wife and mother was doomed to die, and at 
last she herself became convinced that immediate death 
was inevitable, and accordingly she prepared for the 
event. Calling her children to her bedside she kissed 
each in turn, sending them away as soon as goodbye 
was said. Then came the husband's turn to step up 
and bid farewell to a most loving wife, who was per- 
fectly clear in her mind. She began by saying: 

96 



VISIONS OF THE DYING 

' Newton ' (for that was his Christian name) . . . 
' do not weep over me, for I am without pain and am 
wholly serene. I love you upon earth, and shall love 
you after I have gone. I am fully resolved to come 
to you if such a thing is possible, and if it is not 
possible I will watch you and the children from 
Heaven, where I will be waiting when you all come. 
My first desire now is to go. . . . I see people 
moving — all in white. The music is strangely en- 
chanting — Oh ! here is Sadie ; she is with me — and 
— she knows who I am.' Sadie was a little girl she 
had lost about ten years before. ' Sissy ! ' said the 
husband, ' you are out of your mind.' ' Oh, dear ! 
why did you call me here again ? ' said the wife ; 
' now it will be hard for me to go away again ; I was 
so pleased while there — ■ it was so delightful — so 
soothing.' In about three minutes the dying woman 
added : ' I am going away again and will not come 
back to you even if you call me. 5 

" This scene lasted for about eight minutes, and it 
was very plain that the dying wife was in full view of 
the two worlds at the same time, for she described how 
the moving figures looked in the world beyond, as she 
directed her words to mortals in this world. — , 
. I think that of all my death scenes this was 
the most impressive — the most solemn." 

Dr. Wilson, of New York, who chanced to be pres- 
ent at the last moments of James Moore, the tenor, 
gives the following narrative : — 

" It was about four o'clock, and the dawn for which 
he had been watching was creeping in through the 
shutters, when, as I bent over the bed, I noticed that 
his face was quite calm and his eyes clear. The poor 

97 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

fellow looked up into my face, and, taking my hand 
in both of his, he said : ' You've been a good friend 
to me, doctor. You've stood by me.' Then some- 
thing which I shall never forget to my dying day 
happened; something which is utterly indescribable. 
While he appeared perfectly rational and as sane as 
any man I have ever seen, the only way that I can 
express it is that he was transported into another 
world and although I cannot satisfactorily explain the 
matter to myself, I am fully convinced that he had 
entered the Golden City — for he said in a stronger 
voice than he had used since I had attended him: 
' There is mother ! Why, mother, have you come 
here to see me? No, no, I'm coming to see you. Just 
wait, mother, I am almost over. I can jump it. 
Wait, mother.' On his face there was a look of inex- 
pressible happiness, and the way in which he said the 
words impressed me as I have never been before, and 
I am as firmly convinced that he saw and talked with 
his mother as I am that I am sitting here. 

" In order to preserve what I believed to be his 
conversation with his mother, and also to have a rec- 
ord of the strangest happening of my life, I imme- 
diately wrote down every word he had said. . . . 
His was one of the most beautiful deaths I have ever 
seen." 

To the cases above referred to, I will add the fol- 
lowing case reported by F. W. H. Myers, which, al- 
though substantially different from the preceding 
ones, resembles the last one in that a death was an- 
nounced by an apparition of a deceased person : — 

" Mr. Lloyd Ellis had symptoms of lung disease at 
the time (of his father's death), but not to a degree 

98 



VISIONS OF THE DYING 

to lead his friends to expect a fatal termination soon. 
But his health declined rapidly towards the end of 
the year, and in the month of January, 1870, he was 
in a dying state. 

" Lying in an apparent sleep one night (one Mon- 
day night, I believe) he woke up suddenly and asked 
his mother : ' Where is my father ? ' She answered 
him tearfully : * Lloyd dear, you know your dear 
father is dead. He has been dead for more than a 
year now.' ' Is he ? ' — he asked, incredulously — 
'why! he was in the room just now, and I have an 
appointment with him, three o'clock next Wednesday.' 
And Lloyd Ellis died at three o'clock on the follow- 
ing Wednesday morning." 

The following case was reported by the Rev. C. J. 
Taylor, a member of the Society for Psychic Re- 
search. 

" November 2nd, 1885. — On November 2nd and 
3rd, 1870, I lost my two eldest boys, David Edward 
and Harry, in scarlet fever, they being then three and 
four years old, respectively. 

" Harry died at Abbot's Langley on November 
2nd, fourteen miles from my vicarage at Aspley; 
David the following day at Aspley. About an hour 
before the death of this latter child he sat up in bed, 
and pointing to the bottom of the bed, said distinctly : 
6 There is little Harry calling to me.' It has been 
said that the child said : ' He has a crown on his 
head,' but I do not remember this myself; but I was 
so overcome with grief and weariness from long 
watching, that I may have let it escape me. But of 
the truth of this first fact I am sure, and it was heard 
also by the nurse." (Signed: X. Z., Vicar of H.) 

99 



. PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

In letters and conversations with Mr. Podmore, Mr. 
Taylor adds the following details : " Mr. Z. tells me 
that care was taken to keep David from knowing that 
Harry was dead and that he feels sure that David did 
not know it. Mr. Z. was himself present, and heard 
what the boy said. The boy was not delirious at the 
time." 

The next case was communicated to the Society 
for Psychical Research by the Rev. J. A. Macdonald, 
who had it at first hand from Miss Ogle, sister of 
the percipient. 

" Manchester, November 9th, 1884-. — My brother, 
John Alkin Ogle, died at Leeds, July 17th, 1879. 
About an hour before he expired he saw his 
brother, who had died about sixteen years before, and 
looking up with fixed interest, said : * Joe ! Joe ! ' 
and immediately after exclaimed with ardent surprise : 
' George Hanley ! ' My mother, who had come from 
Melbourne, a distance of about forty miles, where 
George Hanley resided, was astonished at this, and 
turning to my sister-in-law, asked if anybody had 
told John of George Hanley's death. She said, ' No 
one,' and my mother was the only person present who 
was aware of the fact. I was present and witnessed 
this." (Signed: Harriet H. Ogle.) In answer to 
inquiries, Miss Ogle states : " J. A. Ogle was neither 
delirious nor unconscious when he uttered the words 
recorded. George Hanley was an acquaintance of 
John A. Ogle, not a particularly familiar friend. 
The death of Hanley was not mentioned in his hear- 
ing." 

100 



VISIONS OF THE DYING 101 

The following three cases are reported in the Pro- 
ceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. 

" In November, 1864, I was summoned to Brigh- 
ton. My aunt Harriet Pearson was then very ill 
there. . . . She slept in a large, three-windowed 
bedroom over the drawing-room. The room behind 
was occupied by Mrs. Coppinger and myself, though 
one of us was generally in the patient's room at night. 
On the night of December 22nd, 1864, Mrs. John 
Pearson was in the room, Mrs. Coppinger and myself 
in the back room; the house was lighted up on the 
landings and staircases ; our door wide open. About 
one or two on the morning of December 23rd, both 
Mrs. Coppinger and myself started up in bed; we 
were neither of us sleeping, as we were watching every 
sound from the next room. We saw someone pass the 
door, short, wrapped up in an old shawl, a wig with 
three curls on each side and an old black cap. Mrs. 
Coppinger called out : ' Emma, get up, it is old 
Aunt Ann ' ( a deceased sister of the sick woman ) . I 
said : ' So it is, then Aunt Harriet will die to-day.' 
We jumped up, and Mrs. John Pearson came rushing 
out of the room and said : ' That was old Aunt Ann. 
Where is she gone to? ' I said to soothe her: ' Per- 
haps it was Eliza come down to see how her mistress 
is.' Mrs. Coppinger ran upstairs and found Eliza 
sleeping in the servants' room. She was very awe- 
struck but calm, and dressed and came down. Every 
room was searched, no one was there. . . . Miss 
Harriet died in the evening of that day, but before 
that told all of us that she had seen her sister and 
knew it was she, and she had come to call her." — 
Emma M. Pearson ; confirmed by Eliza Quinton. 

" Mrs. Caroline Rogers, 72 years old, a widow who 
101 



PSYCHICAL, RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

had been twice married, and whose first husband, a 
Mr. Tisdale, died about thirty-five years ago, has lived 
on Ashland Street, in Roslindale, Mass., for the last 
twenty-five years; and since the death of her last 
child, some years ago, she has lived quite alone. 
Early in March of this year she was stricken with 
paralysis, and after an illness of nearly six weeks 
died on the afternoon of Tuesday, April 15th. 

" Mrs. Mary Wilson, a professional nurse, 45 years 
old, attended Mrs. Rogers during her illness, remain- 
ing with her almost constantly until she died. She 
had never seen Mrs. Rogers before the tatter's illness, 
and knew nothing of her family or history. Mrs. 
Rogers spoke frequently to Mrs. Wilson, and also 
to others, as has long been her custom, of her second 
husband, Mr. Rogers, and of her children, expressing 
a desire to see them again, etc. 

" On the afternoon of April 14th, Mrs. Rogers be- 
came unconscious, and remained so all the time until 
her death twenty-four hours later. Mrs. Wilson sat 
up with her the whole night, and . . . was pretty 
well worn out with her long vigil ; believing that Mrs. 
Rogers was dying, she was naturally very nervous 
and timid; and having heard Mrs. R. speak fre- 
quently of seeing her departed friends, etc., she had 
a feeling of expectancy and dread with regard to 
supernatural visitations. Between 2 and 3 a. m., 
while her daughter was asleep, and while she was 
resting on the settee, but wide awake, she happened to 
look toward the door into the adjoining chamber and 
saw a man standing exactly in the door-way, the door 
being kept open all the time. He was middle-sized, 
broad-shouldered, with shoulders thrown back, had a 
florid complexion, reddish-brown hair (bareheaded) 
and beard, and wore a brown sack overcoat, which was 

102 



VISIONS OF THE DYING 

unbuttoned. His expression was grave, neither stern 
nor pleasant, and he seemed to look straight at Mrs. 
Wilson, and then at Mrs. Rogers without moving. 
Mrs. Wilson supposed, of course, that it was a real 
man, and tried to think how he could have got into 
the house. Then, as he remained quite motionless, 
she began to realize that it was something uncanny, 
and becoming frightened, turned her head away and 
called her daughter, who was still asleep on the couch, 
awakening her. On looking back at the door after 
an interval of a minute or two, the apparition had dis- 
appeared; both its coming and going were noiseless, 
and Mrs. Rogers remained perefectly quiet, and, so 
far as could be known, entirely unconscious during 
this time. The chamber into which this door leads 
being dark, there was no opportunity to observe 
whether or not the apparition was transparent. Mrs. 
Wilson shortly afterwards went into this chamber and 
the living room, but did not examine the lower part 
of the house until morning, when the doors were found 
properly locked and everything all right. 

" In the morning, Mrs. Rogers' niece, Mrs. Hil- 
dreth, who lived in the neighborhood, and had known 
Mrs. R. and her family life many years, called at the 
house. Mrs. Wilson related her experience to her and 
asked if the apparition resembled Mr. Rogers and 
Mrs. Hildreth replied emphatically that it did not. 
(All who knew Mr. Rogers are agreed on this point.) 
Their conversation was interrupted then, but when re- 
sumed later in the day, Mrs. Hildreth said that Mrs. 
Wilson's description agreed exactly with Mr. Tisdale, 
Mrs. Rogers' first husband. Mrs. Rogers came to 
Roslindale after marrying Mr. Rogers and Mrs. Hil- 
dreth is the only person in that vicinity who ever saw 
Mr. Tisdale; and in Mrs. Rogers' house there is no 

103 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

portrait of him nor anything suggestive of his per- 
sonal appearance. Mrs. Wilson is also very positive 
that the apparition was unlike anyone she ever knew." 
— Mary Wilson. 

The following incidents are taken from the same 
source as the previous ones. It was communicated by 
a Mrs. B., who was known to Mr. Podmore. In re- 
lation to the death of her own mother, Mrs. B. nar- 
rates the following, among other particulars. 

" My youngest sister, since dead, was called to my 
mother, and left Devonshire, where she was staying 
with friends, to come home. When she arrived at 
home she entered the drawing room, but rushed out 
terrified, exclaiming that she had seen god-mamma, 
who was seated by the fire in my mother's chair. God- 
mamma had been dead since 1852. She had been my 
mother's governess — almost foster-mother ; had lived 
with her during her married life, being god-mother to 
her eldest girl, and when my father died had ac- 
cepted the duty of taking his place as far as possible 
in the family, to shield her from trouble and protect 
her — • a duty which she fulfilled nobly. 

" My other sister went into the drawing-room to 
see what had scared K., and saw the figure of god- 
mamma just as K. had. Later in the day, the same 
figure stood by, then sat on the edge of my mother's 
bed, and was seen by both my sisters and the old serv- 
ant, looking just as she had when alive, except that 
she wore a gray dress, and, as far as we could remem- 
ber, she had always worn black. My mother saw her, 
for she turned towards her and said : ' Mary ' — her 
name." 

104 



VISIONS OF THE DYING 

The next case is reported by Dr. Richard Hodgson 
and published in the Proceedings of the same Society. 

" January 28th, 1891. About eleven years ago 
I was much distressed owing to the illness of my 
wife, who suffered from cancer in the stomach. I 
heard about a medium, Miss Susie Nickerson White, 
who was said to have given some remarkable tests, 
and I called on her as a stranger and requested a sit- 
ting. My wife's sister purported to ' control,' giv- 
ing her name, Maria, and mentioning facts about my 
family which were correct. She also called my wife 
by her name, Eliza Anne, described her sickness, and 
said that she would pass over, but not for some 
months. I said : ' What do you call this ? Is it 
psychology, or mesmerism, or what? ' Maria said, 
' I knew you were going to ask that ; I saw it in your 
mind.' I said : ' Do you get all things out of my 
mind ? ' She replied : ' No. I'll tell you some 
things that are not in your mind. Within three days 
Eliza Anne will say that she has seen me and mother, 
too, if I can get mother to come along.' (My wife's 
mother had died about forty-five years previously, and 
my wife's sister had been dead from six to eight 
years.) 

" I kept these circumstances to myself, but within 
three days the nurse who was in attendance upon my 
wife came running to me and said that my wife was 
worse, and was going out of her mind; that she had 
called upon Maria and mother, and had sprung out of 
bed and run towards the door, crying : ' Stop, 
Maria ! Stop, mother ! Don't go yet ! ' 

" I soon consulted Miss White again, and Maria 
again purported to control. My wife had been un- 
able for some days to retain any food in her stomach, 

105 



PSYCHICAL RESEAECH AND THE RESURRECTION 

could not even keep water or milk, and was very weak 
and also unable to sleep. Maria told me to give her 
some hot, very strong coffee, with plenty of cream 
and sugar, and some cream toast. This prescription 
amazed me, but it was prepared. My wife ate and 
drank with relish, and slept soundly afterwards. She 
lived upon this food for some days, but gradually be- 
came unable to take even this. I consulted Miss 
White again, and Maria told me to get some, limes, 
and to give my wife some pure juice of the lime sev- 
eral times a day ; she said that this would give her an 
appetite and enable her to retain food. The prescrip- 
tion was a success ; but gradually my wife failed, and 
I consulted Miss White again and asked Maria how 
long my wife would continue to suffer. She said she 
could not tell exactly when she would pass away, but 
would give me a warning : ' The next time she says 
she has seen me, don't leave her afterwards.' 

" Some days after, as I was relieving the nurse 
about three or four in the morning, the nurse said: 
' Mammie ' (meaning my wife) 'says she has seen 
Maria again.' In a few minutes my wife said : ' I 
must go.' And she expired." — E. Paige ; Mary A. 
Paige, formerly Mary Dockerty, the nurse. 

The object, therefore, in calling attention to the 
incidents which I think impressive is to urge an or- 
ganized effort to certify a larger number of them, 
if this be possible. What is urged is that efforts be 
made to report for record all the death-bed visions 
and utterances that may possibly bear upon the issue 
suggested in such as we have quoted. I would pro- 
pose that all persons interested in the work of the 
Society for Psychical Research report all such 

106 



VISIONS OF THE DYING 

experiences as have come under their notice. In this 
way a census of them can at least be initiated. To 
this method I hope to add some means of inducing 
physicians in their private practice to be on the 
watch for them and to report them to the proper per- 
sons. We may ultimately induce physicians in the 
hospitals to instruct nurses and officers to make ob- 
servations and to record all experiences of an hallu- 
cinatory character or otherwise. In any case they 
will be rare, but on one side or the other of the issue 
there is no other way to give our convictions a scien- 
tific character. 

The cases which I have mentioned show interesting 
coincidences and are too suggestive to disregard the 
opportunity to collect similar instances with a view 
to their study in detail. We must expect the largest 
number of them to be non-evidential, that is, to repre- 
sent facts which are not verifiable in respect to the 
other side. But if they can be obtained in sufficient 
numbers to exclude chance in respect of the persons 
said to appear in such apparitions we may have a sci- 
entific product. To exclude chance we need to com- 
pare them with visions that do not represent the dis- 
carnate as thus appearing, but that may be treated 
as casual hallucinations. Hence we shall want to take 
account of all types of dying experiences as ob- 
served by the living. It will be especially important 
to have records from those who were thought to be 
very ill or dying and recovered, who may describe pe- 
culiar experiences in conditions bordering on death. 
It is therefore hoped that my readers will call atten- 
tion to any such cases that may have come within 

107 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

their knowledge and to aid in securing a record of 
them. The extension of the inquiry to hospitals and 
asylums will require time and such interest as physi- 
cians may be induced to take in collecting data for 
study. But a good beginning can be made inde- 
pendently of the more organized effort to obtain rec- 
ords. The present article is simply an appeal for 
assistance in an important investigation. The inter- 
esting incidents quoted seem to be inexplicable by 
chance and a large number of similar cases would 
more certainly exclude it from consideration. 



108 



CHAPTER V 

experiments with mrs. piper since dr. richard 
Hodgson's death 

I summarize here some results of experiments since 
the death of Dr. Richard Hodgson. They of course 
implicate Mrs. Piper, but I do not mean to confine 
the phenomena to what has occurred through her. 
The reason for this is apparent. The scientific scep- 
tic would not easily be convinced by any alleged mes- 
sages from Dr. Hodgson through that source. He 
wishes to be assured that Mrs. Piper had no means of 
knowing the facts which illustrate the personal iden- 
tity of real or alleged communicators before accept- 
ing even telepathy as an explanation. I must there- 
fore respect this attitude in quoting any facts which 
show intelligence of a kind not referable to guessing 
or chance coincidence. It is not that any suspicion of 
Mrs. Piper's honesty is to be entertained at this late 
day, as the past elimination of even the possibility 
of fraud as well as the assurance that she has not 
been disposed to commit it are sufficient to justify 
ignoring it. But our troubles have not been wholly 
removed when we have merely eliminated the right to 
accuse her of fraud. A far more complicated objec- 
tion arises and this is the unconscious reproduction of 
knowledge acquired in a perfectly legitimate way. 
Dr. Hodgson had been so long associated with Mrs. 
Piper that we cannot know, without having his own 

109 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

ante-mortem statement, what he may casually have 
told her about himself and his life. It is easy to ex- 
clude previous knowledge of total strangers, but a 
man who had worked for eighteen years in experiment 
with Mrs. Piper is exposed to the suspicion that he 
may have told many things to her in a casual man- 
ner which may turn up in unconscious simulation of 
his personality. I do not here concern myself with 
that hypothesis of many unscientific people who think 
that Mrs. Piper's mind has drawn telepathically into 
it the personality and memories of Dr. Hodgson pre- 
vious to his death and can at pleasure afterwards 
reproduce them and palm them off as spirits. Any 
one who can believe such a thing without an iota of 
evidence for it can believe anything. I shall not 
treat seriously such an hypothesis until it conde- 
scends to produce at least some evidence for itself 
commensurate with the magnitude of its claims. I 
am not attracted by miracles as long as a perfectly 
simple theory will explain the facts, and hence I 
should be much more impressed by either fraud or 
secondary personality than by any such credulous 
acceptance of the supernatural, for supernatural of 
a most astonishing kind it would be. Under the 
known circumstances it is far easier to suppose that 
Mrs. Piper might have casually acquired information 
from her conversations with Dr. Hodgson and that 
the trance state produces it in spiritistic forms. 
That is the real difficulty which the scientific man has 
to face. 

For this reason I shall have to exercise great cau- 
tion in selecting the facts which are probably free 

110 



EXPERIMENTS WITH MRS. PIPER 

from this suspicion. In doing so I shall assume that 
the reader knows what has been done to protect Mrs. 
Piper's seances from the accusation of conscious fraud 
on her part. All this will be taken for granted in the 
present narrative, and such facts selected as are 
most likely to be representative of supernormal infor- 
mation. In the instances implicating other psychics 
besides Mrs. Piper we shall have facts which may help 
to protect those coming from her. Upon these spe- 
cial stress may be laid, but some of those " communi- 
cated " through Mrs. Piper are so forceful in illus- 
tration of personal identity and so difficult to have 
been in any way ascertained by Mrs. Piper, when we 
know how cautious and reticent Dr. Hodgson actually 
was about his affairs to her, that they will serve to 
allay a natural curiosity of the public which demands 
such communications, if the theory which Dr. Hodg- 
son held before his death is to be considered as true. 
I believe that this interest has its rights and that an 
organization like the Society for Psychical Research, 
receiving the funds of its members, owes something 
to them in return, and while it must maintain a cer- 
tain reserve in the publication of its facts it is easy 
to .postpone this duty beyond all rational limits. 

I will not attempt to publish the detailed record 
of experiments, for we may well abbreviate results to 
merely illustrate the type of facts which we have in 
our possession. 

I repeat that the reader must assume that I have 
allowed for the usual and simple objections to the 
phenomena which I mean here to summarize. I 
should admit frankly that, if I were dealing with 

111 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

ordinary professional mediums the facts which I ex- 
pect to narrate would have no evidential or scientific 
importance. It is because they follow a long history 
of accredited facts that they derive at least a sugges- 
tive value. The reader may entertain the account as 
one of hypothetical importance and await the investi- 
gation of cases where the same reservations will not 
have to be maintained. 

Again before starting on the facts which are to 
serve as evidence of something supernormal in the 
communications purporting to come from Dr. Hodg- 
son, I must remind the reader that we can give only 
the most trivial incidents. We are not engaged in 
the recording and parading about of great revela- 
tions. This must not be expected. We are employed 
in a scientific problem which is one of evidence and 
only the most trivial circumstances will serve as proof 
of the hypothesis which seems to be illustrated in the 
phenomena of Mrs. Piper. If we are to believe in 
the spiritistic theory to account for her case, or to 
explain any other phenomena supposed to be pro- 
duced by the discarnate, we cannot forget that the 
primary problem is the proof of personal identity. 
If a spirit claims to communicate or produce phenom- 
ena not easily explicable by ordinary methods it 
must prove its identity and must communicate little 
trivial incidents in its past earthly life which cannot be 
guessed and which are not common to the lives of other 
people. In other words we must have supernormal in- 
formation and such a quantity as well as quality of 
it as will make the spiritistic theory more probable 

in 



EXPERIMENTS WITH MRS. PIPER 

than any other. Ethical or other revelations are 
worthless for this problem and have to be discarded, 
whatever other interest psychological or philosophical 
they may have. Hence readers must not be disap- 
pointed if we insist on concentrating their attention 
upon the incidents that prove personal identity and 
the supernormal character of the information con- 
veyed through Mrs. Piper. When we have reason to 
accept the supernormal and to believe that its selective 
reference to the personality of deceased persons makes 
survival after death probable, we may take up the 
other problems, but we cannot do more than one thing 
at a time. 

One of the early incidents in the communications 
through Mrs. Piper purporting to come from Dr. 
Hodgson implicates another psychic to a slight extent. 
Dr. Hodgson and I had made an experiment with a 
certain young lady, who had mediumistic powers 
and who was not a professional psychic, nearly a year 
before his death. A short time after his decease a 
friend was having a sitting with Mrs. Piper and in 
the course of the communications — to be called this 
on any theory of them — the friend asked if he 
would communicate with her through any other 
" light," the term used by the trance personalities to 
denote a medium. The reply substantially was: 
" No, I will not, except through the young light. 
She is all right." Later in the sitting one of the 
trance personalities or controls, referring to this told 
the sitter that I (Hyslop) understood to whom this 
referred, giving my name. Dr. Hodgson added to 

113 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

his statement that, as soon as he recovered from the 
shock of death he had examined the case and found 
it all right. 

Now Dr. Hodgson and I, with the parents and one 
or two relatives, were all that knew anything about 
this case. The sitter and others associated with the 
experiment in Boston did not know the meaning of 
the incident and reference. When I was informed of 
it, the matter was made perfectly clear. It is true 
that Dr. Hodgson, while living and after our ex- 
periment with the young lady, had mentioned the case 
without names to the trance personalities so that at 
least Mrs. Piper's subliminal can be supposed to have 
been aware of the facts sufficiently to deprive the inci- 
dent of the evidential value which we would like it to 
have. But the most striking incident is one that in- 
volves a cross reference with this young lady. The 
father carefully kept the knowledge of Dr. Hodg- 
son's death from his daughter and very soon after his 
death and about the time of the incident just men- 
tioned wrote me that they had had a sitting with the 
daughter and that the control had said he had seen 
Dr. Hodgson. This coincides with his statement 
through Mrs. Piper that he had examined the case and 
found it all right. 

Another incident of some interest is the following. 
We had been working together in behalf of the plan 
which we are now putting into execution since his 
death, namely, the formation of an independent Amer- 
ican Society. We had met the second summer before 
at Putnam's Camp in the Adirondacks to talk it over 
and did so, agreeing there upon the main outlines of 

114 



EXPERIMENTS WITH MBS. PIPER 

the scheme. It was our intention to talk the matter 
over again last summer (1905) at the same place, 
more especially with reference to points not touched 
on in our first interview which was occupied with the 
main outlines. But he was not at the camp when I 
called and I missed him. He then wrote me that 
he would either return to Boston by way of New York 
or make a special trip to New York after his return 
to settle matters. He was prevented doing this as 
soon as he had expected and at last decided that he 
would come after the holidays. Less than two weeks 
before this he was in his grave. Hence the reader 
will appreciate the following communications. 

After alluding to the pleasure of seeing the new 
world beyond death, a circumstance wholly worthless 
for any rational purposes in this discussion, he 
changed the subject. I quote the record, putting 
what I said in parentheses and what was written auto- 
matically by Mrs. Piper without enclosure of any 
kind. 

" I will now refer to the meeting I proposed having 
before I came over. 

(When was the meeting to be?) 

" I suggested having a meeting in New York, at 
the — 

(Yes, that is right.) 

" No one could know about these plans better than 
yourself. 

(That is right.) 

" Do you remember my desire to publish my report 
next season. Yes, extracts. 

(About whom were the extracts?) 
115 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

" I wish to publish extracts about our telepathic 
experiments. 

(All right. That was not what I was thinking 
about. But go ahead.) 

" I also wished to publish extracts about the spirit 
side of test experiments and my theory in answer to 
some criticism I recall from Mrs. Sidgwick." 

Now it was a part of Dr. Hodgson's plan to have 
his reply to Mrs. Sidgwick's strictures on his report 
in 1899 ready for the first publication of the new 
movement. We had agreed upon this. We may 
suppose that Mrs. Piper knew of his desire to reply 
to Mrs. Sidgwick, but hardly of his plan to meet me 
and talk over the matter in New York which had been 
quietly arranged. The allusion to " telepathic ex- 
periments " is intelligible only in the light of the fact 
that Mrs. Sidgwick in her criticism admitted the prob- 
ability that in Dr. Hodgson's Report he had a rec- 
ord of frequent telepathic or other form of com- 
munication from the dead, though through the sub- 
liminal mental action of Mrs. Piper. But Mrs. Sidg- 
wick could not accept what Dr. Hodgson had 
called the " possession " theory of the process. His 
probable intention in his reply to her was to quote the 
record of telepathic experiments in the Society's Pro- 
ceedings to show that the analogies between them and 
the Piper phenomena could not be sustained. How- 
ever that may be it is a relevant point in the prob- 
lem, and his special conversation with me turned upon 
the selection of extracts from the records to show 
that his theory of the matter was defensible. He had 
no occasion to reply to her attitude of the spirit 

116 



EXPERIMENTS WITH MRS. PIPER 

hypothesis, as she had tacitly conceded this and only 
disputed his view of the process. He and I had fre- 
quently talked over his reply and I had called his at- 
tention to an important point he could make in it 
from the failure of one of the Piper Reports to quote 
the record in full, actually leaving out a sentence 
which was the clue to the whole difficulty in the com- 
munication. 

On the occasion when we visited the " young light " 
we also had some sittings with a case of alleged in- 
dependent voices. I had reached the city a few days 
previous to Dr. Hodgson and in order to test the 
genuineness of the claims, in accordance with a request 
of my host, I used a liquid to put in the psychic's 
mouth, as the experiments had to be conducted in pitch 
darkness. In the communications through Mrs. 
Piper, Dr. Hodgson interrupted some allusions to the 
effect of death upon the memory and continued. 

" I shall never forget our experiments with a so- 
called light when you took a bottle of red liquid. 

(Very good. You know what a noise that man 
has made.) 

" I do. I know all about it. 

(I have had some controversy with a friend of his.) 

"Recently? 

(Yes, recently. Now can you answer a question? 
Tell me who it was or all you can recall about it.) 

"Yes, which? I remember our meeting there. I 
can remember the liquid experiment which was capital. 
I also recall an experiment when you tied the handker- 
chief. 

(I do not recall it at this moment.) 
117 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

" What's the matter with you? 

(I have tied a handkerchief so often.) 

" Remember the voice experiment ? 

(Yes, I remember that well. That was when the 
liquid was used.) 

" I am referring to it now. I know it perfectly 
well, but no one else does. 

(Yes, that's right.) 

" I remember how she tried to fool us. 

(Yes, it was my first trial at that.) 

" I remember it well. Remember one thing and 
keep this on your mind. I shall avoid referring to 
things of which you are thinking at the time as much 
as possible and refer to my own memories. I have 
seen too much not to understand my business. I re- 
member what our conversation was. She was an 
arrant humbug. 

(Yes, I remember well.) 

" I wish to recall an incident. Do you remember 
writing me from the west about an experiment you 
tried to make while there ? 

(Yes, go on please.) 

" It was on the whole good. 

(Yes, I think it was on the whole good.) 

" After there is some definite arrangement made 
here about some one to fill my place, I hope you will 
take this up again when I shall help you." 

The liquid that I used in the experiment was not 
red but purple. A part of the controversy that arose 
regarding the case occurred before Dr. Hodgson's 
death, but not the part that I had in mind. There 
was no handkerchief tied on the occasion, but on the 

118 



EXPERIMENTS WITH MRS. PIPER 

train coming home Dr. Hodgson told me of a most 
interesting experiment with himself in which the 
handkerchief had been used to bandage his own eyes 
and he showed me how almost impossible it is to 
wholly exclude vision on the part of a shrewd person 
by bandaging the eyes. This, of course, is not indi- 
cated in the statements of the communicator, but it 
is near enough to remind me of what he had said and 
as any allusion to a handkerchief in this connection 
is pertinent one must imagine that the incident which 
I have mentioned was actually intended, and that 
either his own amnesic condition or the misapprehen- 
sion of the trance personality in control is responsible 
for the mistake. 

The opinion expressed of the medium on the occa- 
sion is the opinion that he held about the case when 
living and so is a point in identity though it cannot 
be used to reflect on her character in any respect, as 
one may hold that the evidence for fraud was not 
satisfactory. But Dr. Hodgson was very fully con- 
vinced that there was no reason to believe it genuine. 

It is interesting to remark the allusion to not tell- 
ing me what I was thinking of at the time. I doubt 
if any other communicator than Dr. Hodgson would 
think of this point. He was so familiar with the 
objection to the spiritistic hypothesis from telepathy 
that he was always on the lookout for the facts that 
told against this objection and here it turns up as a 
habit of thought which few would manifest. 

The last incident is quite as important as any of 
the others. Nearly two years before I had had an 
experiment with a psychic out west, a non-professional 

119 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

case — I would not quote a professional type — and 
I not only obtained some important names, but I re- 
ceived the Christian name of George Pelham in re- 
sponse to the request that my father bring the man 
there who had helped him communicate in the Piper 
case, and this was not known by the woman. After- 
ward George Pelham stated through Mrs. Piper that 
he had got his Christian name through in this case. 
This is the reason that Dr. Hodgson thought it a 
good one on the whole. 

The communications quoted were followed by an al- 
lusion to the newspaper stories about his " return- 
ing." No mention was made of the papers, but only 
of the stories to that effect. I then asked him if he 
had been anywhere and he replied that he had tried 
though not very successfully, and then said he had 
tried with the " young girl." The pertinence of this 
will be apparent to the reader after noting the inci- 
dent narrated earlier in this chapter. I then asked if 
he had tried at the case in which I had been inter- 
ested so long. I referred to the Smead case not then 
published.* The reply was as follows: 

" I will tell a message I tried to give. I said I had 
found things better than I thought I had. I also 
spoke of your father. Do you remember this. I am 
Hodgson. I have found things better than I hoped." 
He then made an allusion to my hypnotic experiment 
with a student, but as this had been published in my 
Report on the Piper case the mention of it has no 
value. 

There were a number of allusions to Dr. Hodgson 

* See Chapter VIII. 

120 



EXPERIMENTS WITH MRS. PIPER 

in the automatic writing of Mrs. Smead before she 
knew of his death which had been carefully concealed 
from her by Mr. Smead, and one or two apparitions 
of him associated with a frequent apparition of my- 
self. At one sitting the name of my father was asso- 
ciated with that of Dr. Hodgson, but there was no 
statement that he had found things better than he had 
hoped. There were many pertinent statements which 
have no place in this account further than to men- 
tion the fact, and later the very language here stated 
as having been given through this case was found in 
my record of it, save the reference to the way in which 
he found things. 

I come now to a set of incidents which are perhaps 
as important as any one could wish. I had an ar- 
rangement for three sittings beginning March 19th 
(1906). Previous to this I arranged to have a sit- 
ting with a lady whom I knew well in New York City., 
She was not a professional psychic, but a lady occu- 
pying an important position in one of the large cor- 
porations in this city. This sitting was on the night 
of March 16th, Friday. At this sitting Dr. Hodg- 
son purported to be present. His name was written 
and some pertinent things said with reference to my- 
self, though they were not in any respect evidential. 
Nor could I attach evidential value to the giving of 
his name as the lady knew well that he had died. I 
put away my record of the facts and said nothing 
about the result to any one. I went on to Boston to 
have my sittings with Mrs. Piper. 

Soon after the beginning of the sitting Rector, the 
trance personality usually controlling, wrote that he 

121 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

had seen me " at another light," that he had brought 
Hodgson there, but that they could not make them- 
selves clear, and asked me if I had understood them. 
I asked when it was and received the reply that it was 
two days before Sabbath. The reader will see that 
this coincides with the time of the sitting in New 
York. Some statements were then made by Rector 
about the difficulty of communicating there, owing to 
the " intervention of the mind of the light," a fact 
coinciding with my knowledge of the case, and stated 
that they had tried to send through a certain word, 
which in fact I did not get. 

When Dr. Hodgson came a few minutes afterward 
to communicate he at once asked me, after the usual 
form of his greeting, if I had received his message, 
and on my reply that I was not certain he asked me to 
try the lady some day again. As soon as the sitting 
was over I wrote to the lady without saying a word of 
what had happened and arranged for another sitting 
with her for Saturday evening the 24th. 

At this sitting one of the trance personalities of 
the Piper case, one who does not often appear there, 
appeared, with Miss X. as I shall call her, and wrote 
his name. Miss X. had heard of this personality, but 
knew that Rector was the usual amanuensis in the 
Piper case. Immediately following the trance per- 
sonality whose name was written Dr. Hodgson pur- 
ported to communicate and used almost the identical 
phrases with which he begins his communications in 
the Piper case — in fact, several words were identical, 
and they are not the usual introduction of other com- 
municators. After receiving this message I wrote to 

122 



EXPERIMENTS WITH MRS. PIPER 

Mr. Henry James, Jr., without saying what I had 
got and asked him to interrogate Dr. Hodgson 
when he got a sitting to know if he had recently 
been communicating with me and if he answered in 
the affirmative, to ask Dr. Hodgson what he had told 
me. About three weeks after Mr. James had his 
sitting and carried out my request. Dr. Hodgson re- 
plied that he had been trying to communicate with me 
several Sabbaths previously and stated with some ap- 
proximation to it the message which I had received on 
the evening of the 24th. 

The reader will perceive that these incidents involve 
cross references with another psychic than Mrs. Piper, 
and though I am familiar with the methods by which 
professional mediums communicate with each other 
about certain persons who can be made victims of their 
craft it must be remembered that we are not dealing 
with a professional medium in Miss X. and that we 
can not call Mrs. Piper this in the ordinary use of 
the term. I can vouch for the trustworthiness of 
Miss X. and think that the ordinary explanation of 
the coincidences will not apply in this instance. 

The next day after the sitting just mentioned when 
Dr. Hodgson came to communicate he asked me if I 
remembered anything about the cheese we had at a 
lunch in his room. At first I thought of an incident 
not connected with a lunch, but with an attempt at 
intercommunication between two mediums in which a 
reference to cheese coming from Dr. Hodgson was 
made, but as soon as the mention of a lunch was made, 
which had no relevance to what I was thinking of, 
I recalled the interesting circumstance that once, and 

123 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

only once, I had had a midnight lunch with Dr. 
Hodgson at the Tavern Club when he made a welsh 
rarebit and we had a delightful time. 

Another incident is still more important as repre- 
senting a fact which I did not know and which was 
relevant to a mutual friend who was named and who 
knew the fact. At this same sitting Dr. Hodgson 
sent his love to Prof. Newbold, of the University of 
Pennsylvania, and told me to ask him if he remem- 
bered being with him near the ocean on the beach. 
I inquired of Prof. Newbold if this had any pertinence 
to him and he replied that the last time he saw Dr. 
Hodgson was in the previous July at the ocean beach. 

At the next sitting I had the " young light " pres- 
ent for certain experimental purposes. After the 
communications relevant to her and after she had left 
the room Dr. Hodgson asked me if I remembered the 
meeting we had had with her and what he had said 
about her hysteria, saying that he explained it as a 
partial case of hysteria. The facts were that, after 
our meeting with the young lady and while we were 
walking to a friend's for dinner, Dr. Hodgson re- 
marked to me that he thought there was some hysteria 
in the case and that she was a very clever girl, the last 
remark being repeated here on this occasion through 
Mrs. Piper. 

At a sitting on April 25th after an allusion to telep- 
athy in which he said there was none of this in the 
process except in what came from his mind to me 
through Mrs. Piper, Dr. Hodgson took up another 
important message whose truth and importance I 

1M 



EXPERIMENTS WITH MRS. PIPER 

learned accidentally some time afterward. He said, 
in the automatic writing of Mrs. Piper : 

" Do you remember a man we heard of in — No, in 
Washington, and what I said about trying to see 
him? 

(What man was that?) 

" A light. 

(A real light?) 

" Yes, I heard of him just before I came over. 
Perhaps I did not write you about this." 

Now Dr. Hodgson had not written me about any 
such discovery and the statements had no meaning to 
me. In June I had some business in Washington and 
on the 13th I accidentally met a gentleman in charge 
of a department in one of the largest business houses 
there and in the course df our conversation he casually 
mentioned that he had written to Dr. Hodgson a 
short time before his death about a man there who 
showed signs of mediumistic powers. It happened 
that I knew the man and had received from him some 
years previously an interesting experience. I had 
not heard from him for several years. He is em- 
ployed in a very important office. In my conversa- 
tion with the first mentioned gentleman I learned that 
recently this other man referred to had clearly shown 
indications of mediumistic powers. Here then was 
the possible explanation of the allusion at this sitting 
on April 25th. I had known absolutely nothing of 
the facts until thus mentioned at the sitting and after- 
ward verified in the way described. 

I am not going to enter into any elaborate theo- 
125 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

retical explanation of these incidents. As I have al- 
ready said, the scientific man will attach less value 
to what purports to come from Dr. Hodgson through 
Mrs. Piper than if it came from some one else. Be- 
sides I am not anxious to insist upon explanations at 
present. The most important point is to have the 
facts, and if there were space I would be glad to give 
the detailed records, since these are the data which a 
really scientific man wishes. But this is obviously out 
of the question at the present time. I desire only to 
excuse the demand for the investigation of such 
phenomena. It will be apparent, I think, to every 
man that these statements through Mrs. Piper are 
not due to chance, and that, if we have reason to 
believe that Mrs. Piper had not previously acquired 
by normal means the information conveyed, we have 
facts which do not have an ordinary explanation. 
What the true explanation is we need not insist upon. 
Every one knows what hypothesis I would suggest in 
the case, but I wish less to keep in the front any 
supernormal explanation of the phenomena than to 
present the facts. It is easier to quarrel with theories 
than it is with facts and if we have any reason to trust 
the phenomena as supernormal I am quite willing to 
leave their ultimate cause to the scientific psychologist. 
I should do no more than hold him responsible for the 
evidence that any other theory than the superficial 
one actually applies. But there need be no haste in 
the adoption of any special theory ; it is the collec- 
tion of similar phenomena that is now the most im- 
portant task before us. 



126 



CHAPTER VI 

FURTHER EXPERIMENTS RELATING TO DR. HODGSON 
SINCE HIS DEATH 

In the previous chapter I mentioned the most strik- 
ing incidents affecting the personal identity of Dr. 
Richard Hodgson, which were hardly explicable 
by the most obstinate sceptic on any ordinary 
grounds. There were many incidents which those 
who are familiar with the Piper phenomena and Dr. 
Hodgson's policy in life could very well believe were 
supernormal, but it is hardly advisable to press them 
into too confident a service in favor of undoubted 
supernormal knowledge, especially when we may call 
into use much more striking incidents than such as 
made up the previous chapter. The present chapter 
will extend the important incidents so as to exclude 
more effectively the appeal to ordinary explanations 
of all kinds and to implicate other persons than Mrs. 
Piper in the results. 

One of the first set of incidents in the previous 
chapter was of the type to which special reference 
will be made in the present collection. I mean inci- 
dents which we call cases of " cross reference." These 
are incidents and statements obtained through two or 
more mediums who do not know the facts so obtained. 
Thus, for example, suppose I obtain a " message " 
through the mediumship of A and then have an ex- 
periment with B who does not know that I have had 

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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

a sitting with A, and suppose I received the same 
"message" through B, I am entitled to conjecture 
the same source for both " messages." This will be 
true on any theory of them. The importance to be 
attached to such results is this : the possibility of es- 
tablishing a certain kind of personal identity inde- 
pendently of the communication of past memories, 
which are the first step in proof of a theory of spirit- 
istic sources. What we must demand, as already ex- 
plained, is the obtaining of incidents which any living 
and surviving consciousness would naturally report 
in proof of personal identity when that is questioned. 
When this is once done — and it can be done only 
through memory of the person " communicating " — 
we may resort to all sorts of watch-words given us by 
a specific person and communicated through other 
mediumistic sources in proof of identity where we can 
exclude all other human knowledge of the facts. It 
would very naturally require a larger number of inci- 
dents to prove the personal identity of a deceased 
person through one source than to prove its identity 
in a second case after it has been established in the 
first. The reasons for this we need not emphasize, 
and they may be apparent to all who have paid any 
attention to the difficulties encountered in the study of 
an individual case. The primary reason, however, is 
that we can most assuredly isolate the medium's possi- 
ble knowledge in such cases and render it less probable 
that the explanation is due solely to individual idiosyn- 
cracies of the person through whom the " message " 
comes in the first place. 

It is these circumstances which make " cross refer- 
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EXPERIMENTS WITH MRS. PIPER 

ence " incidents especially cogent and important. I 
gave but few of them in the previous chapter and 
propose to give more of them here, as they have been 
obtained since the experiments which were quoted be- 
fore. I shall also include some incidents which are 
not cases of " cross reference." I shall summarize 
those of cross reference first as they are the stronger 
type. 

I first give some incidents which I obtained through 
a psychic who is not in any respect professional. I 
have already explained the value of such cases. It is 
that of one whose name and identity I am required ab- 
solutely to conceal, as the lady has such social stand- 
ing as would be affected by the intolerant and un- 
charitable attitude of the public. I am sorry, of 
course, that I am not able to mention names, but I 
recognize the duty of secrecy in this case and for more 
reasons than the one which I have indicated. Pri- 
marily I must say no one is safe from the modern 
curse of newspaper reporters and editors, who have 
no respect for any of the courtesies and humanities 
of life. I repeat that this lady is not only not a pro- 
fessional psychic, but does not privately experiment 
outside the innermost circle of her intimate relatives 
and friends. I shall not give any clue to the part of 
the country in which she lives with her husband and 
children. I shall call the lady Mrs. Quentin. 

I received last spring some samples of her work 
which was with the Ouija board and was so pleased 
with it that I was permitted to be present at an ex- 
periment on the date of October 4th, 1906. There 
were five persons present in all; except myself, none 

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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

but intimate relatives, of the same social rank as 
Mrs. Quentin. The manner of " communicating " is 
as follows. 

Mrs. Quentin holds her finger tips on a piece of 
glass like the bottom of a tumbler. There is no spe- 
cial reason why it should be glass. Under some " in- 
fluence " the fingers move the glass to the letters of 
the alphabet which are arranged about a central 
square. After indicating a letter in the process of 
spelling out " messages " the hand returns to this 
central square, and then, often after a pause, goes to 
another letter of the word which is in the process of 
spelling. Usually a word or sentence is spelled out 
before a pause takes place. Various causes of ap- 
parent embarrassment occur to determine a pause, but 
it is not necessary to remark this fact. The im- 
portant circumstance is that the hand moves about 
over the Ouija board pointing out letters which spell 
out intelligent " messages " purporting to come from 
deceased persons. With this conception of what goes 
on the reader will be prepared to understand the in- 
terest that attaches to some of the incidents of the 
process duplicated through Mrs. Piper. 

At this experiment the " communicator " purported 
to be George Pelham. This is the published name of 
a friend of Dr. Hodgson's who succeeded in establish- 
ing his personal identity to Dr. Hodgson through 
Mrs. Piper and was the main subject of the Report on 
that case by Dr. Hodgson in 1898. George Pelham 
gave the same initials through Mrs. Quentin that he 
had given through Mrs. Piper, though no value can 
be attached to that fact since Mrs. Quentin knew it, 

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EXPERIMENTS WITH MRS. PIPER 

as she had read this Report. He had been " com- 
municator " some time previous to my experiment. 
On this occasion of October 4th he gave some evi- 
dence of his own identity in matters pertaining to 
" communications " at my first sitting with Mrs. Piper 
in 1898. Mrs. Quentin had not read my Report on 
these sittings and so had no knowledge of the facts. 
After some incidents had been given that were not 
relevant to the matter of " cross references " associated 
with Dr. Hodgson, the following colloquy took place 
in the manner described. I put in parentheses what 
was said by myself and the rest is what was spelled 
out on the Ouija board. 

" (Well, George, have you seen any of my friends 
recently?) 

No, only Richard H. 

(How is H?) 

Progressive as ever. 

(Is he clear?) 

Not very. 

(Do you mean when he communicates or in his nor- 
mal state?) 

Oh, all right normally. Only when he comes into 
that wretched atmosphere he goes to pieces. Won- 
der how long it will take to overcome this. 

(Do you see Hodgson often?) 

Yes, our lives run in parallels." 

On the 10th of October I had an experiment with 
Mrs. Piper, and of course kept absolutely secret both 
that I had had this sitting of October 4th and the 
contents of it. The following is what occurred in 
reference to the sitting of October 4th, as the inci- 

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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

dents will suggest. I shall have to quote the record 
at considerable length. I adopt the same form as be- 
fore. The square brackets indicate that the matter 
enclosed consists of explanatory notes or comments 
added after the experiment or at the time and do 
not indicate anything that was said on the occasion. 
After the preliminaries by the " control," who 
claimed to have the assumed name of Rector, the fol- 
lowing took place on the appearance of what claimed 
to be Dr. Hodgson. 

" I am Hodgson. 

(Good, Hodgson, how are you?) 

Capital. How are you, Hyslop, old chap ? 

(Fine.) 

Good, glad to hear it. Did you receive my last 
message ? 

(When and where?) [I of course had in mind 
the incidents from which the previous quotation is 
taken.] 

I told George to give it to you. 

(Was that recently?) 

Yes, very. 

(I got something about you from George. May 
be he can tell.) 

[I was here thinking of George Pelham.] 

Oh, yes, well I told him to tell you. I mean George 
D [name written in full at the time.] 

(No, he did not write to me.) 

Too bad. Ask him about it, or better still I will 
tell you myself. I said I tried to reach you and an- 
other man whom I thought to be Funk. 

(No.) 

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EXPERIMENTS WITH MRS. PIPER 

I heard you say Van. 

(I do not recall that word, but I think I know what 
place it was.) 

You called out Van. I heard it and tried to give 
a message through him. 

(I was not experimenting with a man, but you 
might have seen a ' light ' in him.) [The man pres- 
ent on the occasion was in mind.] 

Yes, I did, and I thought I could speak but I 
found it too difficult. He did not seem to under- 
stand. 

(DidG. P. try?) 

Yes, George did and said I was with him. Get it? 

(I did not get any message of that kind, but he 
said some things.) 

He said he would help and he did so. You must 
bear in mind that I am constantly watching out [for] 
an opportunity to speak or get at you. Did I under- 
stand the name right? I heard him say something 
about light. 

(Yes, that's correct.) [Reference had been made 
by G. P. at that experiment to the Smead case.] 

Do not think I am asleep, Hyslop. Not much. I 
may not understand all that goes on, but I hear more 
than I explain here. 

(Yes, I understand.) 

Therefore you must get what I can give here and 
try to understand why it seems so fragmentary. I 
do not feel your lack of interest, but I do feel great 
difficulties in expressing [myself] through lights 
[mediums]. 

(Yes, what ' light ' was it that George spoke 
133 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

about?) [I thought of the Smead case, expecting 
something would be said about it.] 

He spoke about this [Mrs. Piper] and the woman 
you experimented with." 

[G. P. did spontaneously speak of the Piper case 
at that sitting from which I quoted above, and also 
made some pertinent and true statements about the 
Smead case agreeing with what he had said about it 
through Mrs. Piper some years ago, the facts not 
having been published and hence not known by Mrs. 
Quentin.] 

The thread of the communications was interrupted 
at this point by a change of subject not relevant to 
the " cross reference " incidents which concern us at 
present. Some minutes later the matter was spon- 
taneously resumed as follows. 

" Did you hear me say George? 

(When?) 

At the lady's. 

(No.) 

I said it when I heard you say Van. 

(Was that the last time I had an experiment?) 

Yes, we do not want to make any mistake or con- 
fusion in this, Hyslop. 

(Did G. P. communicate with me there?) 

He certainly did. Wasn't that FUNK? 

(No, Funk was not there.) 

Was it his son? 

(No, it was not his son.) 

It resembled him I thought. I may be mistaken 
as I have seen him with a light recently. 

(Do you know anything that George said to me?) 
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EXPERIMENTS WITH MRS. PIPER 

I cannot repeat his exact words, but the idea was 
that we were trying to reach you and communicate 
there. 

(Do you know the method by which the messages 
came to us?) 

We saw [Mrs. Piper's hand ceased writing 

and began to move about the sheet of paper exactly 
as did the hand of Mrs. Quentin when she spelled out 
the words by the Ouija board. The most striking 
feature of this identity was the tendency of Mrs. 
Piper's hand to move back to the center of the sheet 
as Mrs. Quentin's always did after indicating a let- 
ter.] 

(That's right.) 

You asked the board questions and they came out 
in letters. 

(That's right.) 

I saw the modus operandi well. I was pleased that 
George spelled his name. It gave me great delight. 
I heard you ask who was with him and he answered 
R. H. 

(I asked him how you were.) 

He said first rate or very well. I am not sure of 
the exact words. Do you mind telling me just how 
the words were understood. Was it very well or all 
right ? 

(The words were * progressive as ever.') 

Oh yes! I do not exactly recall those words, but 
I heard your question distinctly, Hyslop. I leave no 
stone unturned to reach you and prove my identity. 
Was it not near water? 

(Yes.) 

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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

And in a light room? 

(Yes, that's correct.) 

I saw you sitting at a table or near it. 

(Yes, right.) 

Another man present and the light [medium] was 
near you. 

(Yes.) 

I saw the surroundings very clearly when George 
was speaking. I was taking it all in, so to speak." 

At this point the subject was spontaneously 
dropped and the communicator did not recur to it 
again. The reader will easily observe the features of 
identity in the two cases. In the case of Mrs. Quen- 
tin, G. P. did mention Mrs. Piper and made some 
pointed remarks about Mrs. Smead, " the woman that 
I experimented with," and mentioned Dr. Hodgson. 
The description here of the method of communicating 
through Mrs. Quentin is perfectly accurate, though 
wholly unknown to Mrs. Piper. Mrs. Quentin was 
opposite me at the table on which the Ouija board 
rested, and at my immediate right was a gentleman 
aiding in the reading of the messages. He had no 
resemblance to Dr. Funk. Two other men, however, 
were present sitting farther off. One of them might 
be mistaken by obscure perception for Dr. Funk, as 
his iron gray beard and hair might suggest the man 
named, but only to a mind which did not have clear 
perceptions and was prepossessed with the idea of the 
person he thought he saw. 

It will be as apparent to the reader also that there 
is much confusion in the communications and that the 
communicator, on any theory of the phenomena, can- 

136 



EXPERIMENTS WITH MRS. PIPER 

not make the " messages " as definite as we desire 1 
them. The recognition of this fact by the com- 
municator himself is an interesting circumstance, and 
it is noticeable that he says that he knows more than 
he can explain. Students of this problem and the 
fragmentary nature of many messages will discover 
the truth of the statement, as it is evident that far 
more is in the mind of communicators than is regis- 
tered through the writing and communications gen- 
erally, a fact which would be much more natural on 
the spiritistic theory than any other, assuming that 
there are both mental and other difficulties on the 
other side when communicating. But this aspect of 
the problem is not the primary one in this paper. 

In connection with the passages which I have just 
quoted I saw my chance to test another " cross refer- 
ence." I had previously made arrangements to have 
an experiment with another psychic in Boston, and as 
soon as I got the chance I indicated it, and the follow- 
ing is the record. I was at the sitting with Mrs. 
Piper. 

"(Now, Hodgson, I expect to try another case this 
afternoon. ) 

SMITH. [Pseudonym.] 

(Yes, that's right.) 

I shall be there, and I will refer to Books and give 
my initials R. H. only as a test. 

(Good.) 

And I will say books." 

I was alone at the sitting with Mrs. Piper. She 
was in a trance from which she recovers without any 
memory of what happens or has been said during it. 

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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

Three hours afterward I went to Mrs. Smith, who 
did not know that I had been experimenting that day 
with Mrs. Piper. After some general " communica- 
tions " by the control and a reference to some one who 
was said to be interested in Dr. Hodgson, came the 
following. In this case it was not by automatic writ- 
ing as with Mrs. Piper, but by ordinary speech dur- 
ing what is apparently a light trance. 

" Beside him is Dr. Hodgson. It is part of a 
promise to come to you to-day as he had just been to 
say to you he was trying not to be intense, but he is 
intense. I said I would come here. I am. I thought 
I might be able to tell different things I already told. 
Perhaps I can call up some past interviews and make 
things more clear. Several things were scattered 
around at different places. [I have several purported 
communications from him through four other cases.] 
He says he is glad you came and to make the trial 
soon after the other. 

[I put a pair of Dr. Hodgson's gloves which I had 
with me in Mrs. Smith's hands.] 

You know I don't think he wanted them to help him 
so much as he wanted to know that you had them. 
You have got something of his. It looks like a book, 
like a note book, with a little writing in it. That is 
only to let you know it." 

At this point the subject was spontaneously 
changed and I permitted things to take their own 
course. A little later he returned to the matter and 
the following occurred. 

" There is something he said he would do. He 
said : ' I would like to say a word.' I said I would 

138 



EXPERIMENTS WITH MRS. PIPER 

say — I know it's a word [last evidently the psychic's 
mind.] Your name isn't it? [apparently said by 
psychic to the communicator.] I said I would say: 
— Each time the word slips. [Pause.] I am afraid 

I can't get it. It sounds Looks as if it had 

about seven or eight letters. It is all shaky and 
wriggly, so that I can't see it yet. 

Can't you write it down for him so I can see? 
[apparently said to the communicator.] C. [psy- 
chic shakes her head.] [Pause.] [Psychic's fin- 
gers then write on the table.] Would it mean any- 
thing like ' Comrade ' ? (No. ) He goes away again. 
(All right. Don't worry.) [Pause.] Let me take 
your other hand. [Said to me. I placed my left 
hand in the psychic's.] No good. [Pause.] I'm 
trying to do it. I know that he has just come from 
the other place, and kept his promise to say a word." 

The reader will notice that I got the reference to 
books, the promise to say a word, and an apparent at- 
tempt to give the other promised message which was 
not successful. It is noticeable that the word " in- 
itials " has seven letters in it. 

The message is not so clear as the most exacting 
critic might demand, but we must remember that we 
are not dealing with well established methods of com- 
munication involving perfect command over the men- 
tal and cosmic machinery for this purpose. The 
main point is that there is a coincidence of personality 
and message in the case where it was not previously 
known that any such reference to books would be rele- 
vant. For those of us who are familiar with this 
type of phenomena it is perfectly intelligible to find 

139 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

a rambling and incoherent manner in referring to the 
subject. We assume as a fundamental part of the 
hypothesis an abnormal mental condition of the me- 
dium through which the communications come and 
also of the agent that is instrumental in sending them. 
That, if true, may well account for the confused way 
in which the message is obtained and its setting of 
delirious and irrelevant matter. The reference to a 
promise, to its having been made that very day, to 
my having been at the other " light," to the correct 
name of the party, all but this name being absolutely 
unknown to the medium, when associated with the 
reference to books, makes a striking coincidence which 
hardly seems due to chance or guessing. 

I should add in this connection another important 
incident which will strengthen the coincidence involved 
in the facts just told. I had another experiment the 
same evening with another young lady who is not a 
professional and with whose mother I had been in 
correspondence for some time. I had arranged some 
time before to have a sitting for that evening. I did 
not give the slightest hint that I was to be in Boston 
for any other business and no one of the family was 
informed of my arrival two days previously or of my 
intentions of having sittings with Mrs. Piper and 
Mrs. Smith. When I arranged to go out to the 
house with the mother I made it appear that I had 
arrived from New York only a half hour before. 
Hence it was not known to the mother or to the young 
lady that I had had any other experiments that day. 

At the experiment with Mrs. Piper I had used a 
pair of old gloves which Dr. Hodgson had worn, — 

140 



EXPERIMENTS WITH MRS. PIPER 

the same being used for purposes which experimenters 
in this field understand — and I had placed the same 
articles in the hands of Mrs. Smith when I got the 
reference to books. When I had my experiment with 
the young lady mentioned later in the evening of the 
same day it was some time before I placed the same 
gloves in her hands. When I did she paused a few 
minutes, made a general remark, and then said : " I 
get books in connection with these." 

The coincidence again is apparent and whether it is 
to have any causal significance will depend upon the 
judgment of each reader who is capable of estimating 
the character of such phenomena. 

There was another coincidence which involved a 
" cross reference." At the experiment with Mrs. 
Piper that day, Dr. Hodgson referred to a " stylo- 
graphic pen " which he said he wished me to have. 
The probable object of this reference was to a circum- 
stance connected with similar experiments elsewhere, 
as it seems to be an important part of these experi- 
ments that we should have some article of the com- 
municator's to " hold " him, whatever that means. 
But this aside, the fact is that Dr. Hodgson had a 
special stylographic pen which was necessary when- 
ever a certain one of the trance personalities controlled 
the writing of Mrs. Piper's hand. He had several 
fountain pens which he used for his own purposes, 
but his stylographic pen was necessary when Imper- 
sonator, the chief of the trance personalities, influ- 
enced the automatic writing. But whatever his ob- 
ject in alluding to this pen and saying that he 
wanted me to have it, at this later sitting on the same 

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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

day an allusion was made to " a pen which he car- 
ried in his pocket " and the statement was made that 
" it had a little ring around it." I do not know 
whether the stylographic pen had a ring around it 
or not, as I was not able to obtain the pen, all of these 
little trinkets having been given to his friends as 
mementos. But there was the coincidence of this ap- 
parent reference to the same thing at both sittings. 

Allusion was also made at both sittings to the 
Institute and characteristic references with statements 
about our co-operation in it which was not known by 
either medium. One was to a letter which Dr. Hodg- 
son wrote to me a few weeks before his death about an 
intended meeting in New York to consider the plans 
of the Institute. Similar allusions were also made to 
the organization of an independent Society and its re- 
lations to the English body. 

But a more important instance occurred. If the 
reader will turn to the February number of the Jour- 
nal (p. 106) he will find there an important allusion 
to a man in Washington who was said to be a medium 
and to a letter which the communicator, Dr. Hodg- 
son, said he may not have written to me about the 
case. The facts represented by this incident, the 
reader will recall, were not known by me and were only 
accidentally learned afterward. This allusion was 
made in the spring, but it was locked up in my record 
and the lady with whom I was now holding a sitting 
knew nothing of this incident. But, after an allusion 
to a lady who was closely connected with Dr. Hodgson 
in the experiments with Mrs. Piper, there apparently 
came from him the following: 

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EXPERIMENTS WITH MRS. PIPER 

" Have you been to Washington lately ? " 

(Not specially.) 

" Is there any psychological work there? I see 
people who are interested and who will help you in 
your work. May not be able all at once, but will do 
it in time." 

There is no absolute assurance that the incidents 
are identical in their import, but they are close enough 
to suggest their probable meaning. The very men- 
tion of Washington in both sets of experiments and 
associating it with my experimental work is at least a 
suggestion in the same direction, though we should 
desire clearer indications of identity. 

While referring to this experiment in which the 
" cross references " occur I might allude to other inci- 
dents which apparently represent supernormal knowl- 
edge and purport to come from Dr. Hodgson. 
Their value lies in the fact that they are incidents ob- 
tained independently of Mrs. Piper. 

There was a fair description given of George Pel- 
ham, the deceased friend of Dr. Hodgson and who 
had, after his death, convinced Dr. Hodgson of his 
survival. It was not evidential, but certain state- 
ments about his being around at experiments was 
made which is confirmed by evidence of his presence at 
various other experiments which I have had and which 
are not known to any one but myself. 

It may be worth remarking also that an allusion 
was made to " a little boy four or five years old " and 
it was said also : " He is grown up. He wears a 
little blouse and little pants like knickerbockers," fol- 
lowed by a reference to the family circle. I had a 

143 



PSYCHICAL, RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

brother who died in 1864 at four and a half years of 
age. The clothes that he wore are correctly described 
here and we have always kept a picture of him in 
this suit. His name and death are mentioned in my 
Report published in 1901, but no allusion was made 
to his dress there. It was later, in sittings with Mrs. 
Piper, that practically the same reference was made to 
this dress, and the records of that allusion have not 
been published. 

Another instance possibly involves a " cross refer- 
ence " and certainly suggests supernormal knowledge 
of an interesting kind. Mr. Frederic W. H. Myers 
purported to communicate with me at this same meet- 
ing. Having in mind his alleged communication with 
me through another medium, Mrs. Smead, mentioned 
on page 222, I asked a question when he purported 
to be present at this sitting held the same day as the 
one with Mrs. Piper. The following is what oc- 
curred with Mrs. Smith: 

"Mr. Myers. (Yes.) You . . . [incom- 
plete notes] Myers. He smiles. We are brothers." 

(Are you there, Mr. Myers?) 

" Yes, right here." 

(All right. Have you tried to communicate with 
me?) 

" Yes, not here. Another place where there is a 
younger guide, a man, not Piper, another place in a 
city. Don't get name through. What we all want 
is unity of expression through different mediums 
[un] swayed by their personality, if it helps us to do 
this well through two or three. We should do it 
many times." 

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EXPERIMENTS WITH MRS. PIPER 

(Good, you have done that through one case.) 

" Yes I know, but we must do it several times. We 
don't have any question but that it can be done. We 
must have the key to shut out the personality of the 
medium. He says he will do that." 

The kind of experiment here alluded to was a favor- 
ite one in the plans of Mr. Myers when living and 
some experiments were performed by himself and Dr. 
Hodgson in this direction, though the facts were never 
made public. The characteristic may have been gen- 
erally known and hence I do not refer to it as evi- 
dential, but only as suggestive of his identity. The 
important points, however, are the correct statements 
that he had communicated with me elsewhere and 
neither at this case nor at Mrs. Piper's. He never 
communicated with me at Mrs. Piper's, a fact which 
was not known by any one but myself. He did pur- 
port to communicate with me through Mrs. Smead, 
where the control was a young man. 

I come now to a complicated series of " cross ref- 
erences " of which I cannot give the exact details, 
as the matter is private and personal, though not so to 
myself. At the last sitting with Mrs. Piper, Dr. 
Hodgson spontaneously alluded to it and stated that 
it was private and advised me against the project. 
The facts were known to but three other persons 
then living. Dr. Hodgson had not known it when 
living. I kept the facts so communicated absolutely 
secret, not reporting them to those who keep the Piper 
records, but filing the matter in my own iron box. 

A few weeks later my wife, who passed away some 
years ago, purported to communicate through Mrs. 

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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

Smead and spontaneously alluded to the same project, 
approving of it. Mrs. Smead knew nothing of the 
facts and nothing of allusions to them through Mrs. 
Piper. 

Through another private medium, not a profes- 
sional in any respect, in another city, whose psychic 
powers suddenly came to her knowledge all unwit- 
tingly last spring, my father purported to communi- 
cate, and alluding to the same facts approved of the 
project in the identical language which he used in 
life regarding such matters. As a test of the case, 
and thinking of what Dr. Hodgson had communicated 
through Mrs. Piper, I asked him what Dr. Hodgson 
thought about it. His immediate reply was that he 
was opposed to it and that he had frequently spoken 
to him about it. In giving what was alleged to be 
Dr. Hodgson's opinion on the matter he used an 
expression which was exactly the sentiment that Dr. 
Hodgson had expressed to me some years before his 
death when we were returning on a boat from Nan- 
tasket Beach. Presently Dr. Hodgson purported to 
take the place of my father as communicator and 
showed an attitude of disapproval, but was argued 
by myself at the time into a half-hearted acceptance 
of the facts, as a test of the mental attitude of com- 
municators. In the process of our communications 
he showed exactly the mental attitude which he had 
always taken on these matters. 

Another instance which is not so complicated and 
hence not so strong, is interesting. On November 
22nd, 1906, I had an experiment with Mrs. Quentin 
again and the first communicator purported to be Dr. 

146 



EXPERIMENTS WITH MRS. PIPER 

Hodgson. He did not succeed in getting anything 
evidential through. He was followed by my father 
who was quite successful in several incidents, and he 
by my wife who succeeded in one suggestive message. 
The method employed was the Ouija board. On 
November 27th I had a sitting with the lady men- 
tioned above who resides in another city five hundred 
miles distant from the place in which Mrs. Quentin 
lives and who, as said, is a private person. Dr. Hodg- 
son purported to communicate and the following col- 
loquy occurred, my father purporting to be the con- 
trol: 

"(Is any one with you?)" 

Yes, Hodgson [written ' Hodgkins,' though the 
lady knew well how to spell the name]." 

(Good, will he try?) 

I will talk for him at first. 

(How are you Hodgson?) 

I am still a little shaky, but have hopes that soon 
I will be as strong as anybody. 

(Did you try a few days ago at another place? 
How did they try to communicate?) 

Yes, but could not work there. By talking with 
the planchette. 

(Good, who else tried there?) 

Your wife. Your father succeeded." 

As remarked above the Ouija board was the means 
employed on November 22nd, and as this is closely 
allied to the planchette the mistake is not an important 
one. In all cases except Mrs. Piper, Dr. Hodgson 
apparently is very " shaky " and finds it exceedingly 
difficult if not impossible to communicate. He shows 

147 



PSYCHICAL. RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

much agitation in the Piper case, and that seems 
the only instance but one in which he seems to get 
good messages through. The interest attaching to 
the way in which he here speaks of my father's suc- 
cess can be determined by the reader. As the lady 
through whom these messages came was not in a trance 
we may assume, from her knowledge of the sittings 
of the three previous days, that she might guess 
that my father and my wife had tried, so that I 
cannot give as much weight to that fact as would 
otherwise be the case. The coincidences taken to- 
gether, however, have their value, and each reader 
may estimate that according to his knowledge of 
the subject. 

Another brief incident may be worth mentioning. 
I went to St. Louis to try a private case, and though 
the lady was not a good psychic I got some evidence 
of Dr. Hodgson's presence. This was not good 
enough to attach any special weight to it, save that 
the peculiarly shaky style of writing and the form 
of expression were characteristic of what was done 
in the Piper case when he purported to communicate. 
His name was written in a characteristic manner, and 
when I asked how he was I got the reply : " Fine." 
This was the word that he had used occasionally in 
the Piper sittings some months before. This, of 
course, could not have any special weight by itself, 
but as a concomitant of manner and phrase that were 
characteristic it should have a place in the record 
of attempts to get messages from him. The chief 
value of this and similar incidents is the light which 
they throw upon the difficulties of getting evidential 

148 



EXPERIMENTS WITH MRS. PIPER 

matter in support of the theory which the phenomena 
seem to favor. 

To give the fact more weight than it would have 
by itself I should call the reader's attention to a cir- 
cumstance that occurred in the fall a short time after 
my return from this experiment in the west. This 
experiment was near the end of September. On 
October 10th, at Mrs. Piper's, Dr. Hodgson, pur- 
porting to communicate, and after an allusion to an 
experiment in the summer, out west, said : " I saw 
you experimenting with another lady. I tried to 
say Hodgson. Did you get it?" It was his full 
name that I got with the word " fine " in answer 
to my greeting. The lady, of course, knew that he 
had passed away and that I would be experimenting 
for him. But this allusion to another lady than the 
one in the summer, and the name, tends to suggest 
that the incident may be one of " cross reference." 
Its value, if it be what it seems, consists in the multi- 
plication of the references that tend to add strength 
to the evidence of the supernormal whose explanation 
is obvious when we have excluded fraud and secondary 
personality.* 

* I have a still better and much more complicated instance 
of " cross reference " incidents. But as it does not affect 
Dr. Hodgson or his personality I cannot detail its features 
here. It involves the prediction through two different and 
private mediums of the death of a specific person indicated 
with perfect clearness, relationship to me and another person 
being stated. I did not myself know that the person was 
dangerously ill at the time. Also, through both mediums I 
was told that a certain deceased person was watching over him 
and would meet him. Through three mediums who did not 
know of his death and only a few weeks after it, two of them 
private cases and the other a respectable public medium, this 
person was mentioned with the most of his name, and the 

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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

I shall pass now from incidents involving " cross 
reference " to those which do not, and confine myself 
to what came through Mrs. Piper on October 10th. 
They may be more specific than the type which I 
have just illustrated, and must be adjudged by the 
reader according to his tastes. 

Immediately after the description of the incidents 
connected with the Ouija board experiment, Dr. 
Hodgson, through the automatic writing of Mrs. 
Piper, said: 

" I saw you recently writing up all I have said 
to you. 

(That's right, Hodgson.) 

And it pleased me very much. 

(I am going to print it in the Journal.) 

Amen. You have my consent. I wish the world 
to know that I was not an idiot. 

(All right. That's good.) 

Do you remember a joke we had about George's 
putting his feet on the chair and how absurd we 
thought it. 

(George who?) 

Pelham, in his description of his life here. 

(No, you must have told that to some one else.) 

fact that he met the person who, I was told, would meet him 
as he crossed the border. 

The value of the incidents depends mainly upon the reli- 
ability of the sources through which they came, and I shall 
urge that less here than I shall its evidential value, if the 
trustworthiness of the facts can be accepted. I cannot ex- 
plain here why they can be trusted, but shall do so when 
the detailed record is published. But their hypothetical im- 
portance can be considered from the standpoint of " cross 
reference" while we await the guarantees that normal knowl- 
edge of the facts was not possible. 

150 



EXPERIMENTS WITH MRS. PIPER 

Oh, perhaps it was Billy. Ask him." 

This, as I said, was on October 10th. During 
the summer, some time in August, I had been writing 
out the first and the third papers which are being 
published in the Journal on Dr. Hodgson's purported 
communications. The fact was known only to myself 
and one or two other persons. The attitude of Dr. 
Hodgson in approval of it was entirely characteristic. 
He was anxious, when living, to have his judgment 
in the case vindicated, and while he might not have 
used the exact language employed in this connection 
he would have expressed himself plainly in the matter. 
The use of " idiot " is quite characteristic of George 
Pelham's ways, and he may have been an intermediary. 

The other incident I knew nothing about. But I 
knew what " Billy " referred to. This was the name 
by which he had always called Prof. Newbold, and 
so I made inquiry of him regarding the pertinence of 
the incident. He replied that he and Dr. Hodgson 
had laughed heartily at some statements of George 
Pelham, when he was trying to communicate after 
his death, about the way he did when he was commu- 
nicating. He claimed that he was in the medium's 
head and his feet on the table while he was trying 
to communicate through her hand. The description 
is ludicrous enough, but the incident, perhaps, is 
good enough to prove identity, and the best part of 
its value is that I did not know the facts. 

Perhaps a more interesting incident is a frag- 
mentary and confused message whose meaning at 
the moment I did not detect, but it became apparent 
soon afterward when I had investigated the matter 

151 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

further. The following was communicated in the 
same manner as previous quotations: 

" Do jou recall the man I referred to now ? 

(You did not . . . . ) [My sentence not finished 
as writing continued.] 

The clergyman whom we saw at Pa. San, whose 
wife was anxious about his trances. 

(No, you did not mention him.) 

I did some time ago. Do you remember him? 

(What was his name?) 

It was San. . San. . Oh what was it. He was a 
young man and had not been married long." 

The facts are these: The Rev. Stanley L. Krebs 
invited me to take part in some experiments in a 
certain town in Pennsylvania (Pa.) in which he was 
to have present a certain clergyman, whose name I 
must not reveal at present, and who had come thither 
to test certain incidents that had been mentioned 
through him in a previous trance. He was a young 
man and had not been long married. His wife was 
opposed to his going into trances. We tried some 
experiments at table tipping and one with this clergy- 
man's trance. I reported the facts to Dr. Hodgson 
and Mr. Krebs had some correspondence with Dr. 
Hodgson regarding the case. There was every reason 
to believe the phenomena were genuine. But the man's 
name has no resemblance to " San," and Dr. Hodg- 
son was not present with me at the experiments and 
I suspect never saw the clergyman. But he knew 
all about the case and its phenomena. Apparently 
" San " is a confused and fragmentary attempt to 
give the name " Stanley," a part of Mr. Kreb's name, 

152 



EXPERIMENTS WITH MRS. PIPER 

this latter part of it having failed to be recalled by 
the communicator. It can be safely assumed that 
Mrs. Piper never heard of the case, and if she had, 
the incidents would never have taken the form which 
they did. The confusion and fragmentary character 
of the allusions make them interesting and important. 

Another brief incident has much interest, as re- 
flecting the natural action of an independent mind 
rather than that of a telepathic agent. It is a re- 
quest that I remember him to a friend whom I did not 
know, and most probably never saw. He said to me 
near the close of this same sitting : " Do you remem- 
ber a friend of mine, George Goddard, at the camp? 
Give him my love and tell him I live to send it." 

I have learned from Prof. James that Mr. Goddard 
had been a member of Putman's Camp in the Adiron- 
dacks where Dr. Hodgson usually spent a part of 
his summer vacations. I called twice on Dr. Hodg- 
son while he was there, spending a couple of hours 
there with him each time. But I do not recall meet- 
ing Mr. Goddard there, and it is improbable that 
Mrs. Piper ever knew anything of the man or his 
relation to Dr. Hodgson at this camp. The main 
point of the incident, assuming that it is supernormal, 
is that it is too much like the action of a real living 
friend to be attributed to a mechanical agency like 
telepathy, which, in fact, does not seem to me to be 
deserving of serious consideration in such incidents. 
A simple and more natural interpretation, if we are 
going to be sceptical about the most obvious explana- 
tion, is Mrs. Piper's previous knowledge of the fact, 
a supposition which it is hardly necessary to make 

153 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

in the light of the proved supernormal character 
of most of her work. 

The explanation of these facts takes us beyond 
the case of Mrs. Piper as every intelligent reader 
must observe. That has been the purpose of group- 
ing together the instances of " cross reference " in this 
article. Members of the Society for Psychical Re- 
search have constantly reproached us for having no 
other oracle than Mrs. Piper and for making our 
case depend upon her phenomena alone. That re- 
proach cannot be cast against the contents of this 
chapter. We have involved here five other cases of 
similar phenomena. Moreover it should be noticed in 
this connection that the reproach made against the 
limitation of the case to Mrs. Piper was based upon 
an entire misunderstanding of the problem and of 
the reason for talking so much about her. It was 
not the nature of the phenomena that was the reason 
for laying so much weight upon it, but the conditions 
under which they were obtained. Genuine phenomena 
may be plentiful enough, but scientific credentials 
may be very scarce. What the Society has been 
searching for so strenuously was scientific proof and 
this requires such conditions as exclude the possibility 
of certain well known objections which the sceptic 
has the right to have answered, though he too fre- 
quently entertains them without making himself re- 
sponsible for the evidence that they are in fact ap- 
plicable. But we shall never secure our case until it 
is made impossible rationally to suggest the common 
objections to the genuineness of mediumistic phe- 
nomena. 

154 



EXPERIMENTS WITH MES. PIPEE 

Now it is the scientific security of the Piper case 
against all possible objections of fraud that has oc- 
casioned the perpetual appeal to it as evidence that 
the ordinary objections to the nature of the facts do 
not apply. Nevertheless it is important, both for 
the further exclusion of the right to suspect fraud 
and for the complication of the phenomena, that we 
should not only secure other and similar cases, but 
also a complex system of " cross references," both 
of which this book supplies. Whatever explanation 
be proposed it must reckon with these facts. Besides, 
I have quoted cases of a private nature only, save 
one, Mrs. Smith, who was protected against suspicion 
by the small interval of time between the sitting with 
her and that of Mrs. Piper, as well as the reservation 
of facts which I made in the matter and the limitation 
to myself of the knowledge which it was necessary 
for her to have in order to simulate the supernormal. 
In all other cases I was dealing with private psychics, 
and private also in the sense that they are not prac- 
ticing their art even for their friends in any general 
way, as well as not receiving any pay for their exper- 
iments. The one case which is not private has no 
suspicions raised against her, and even if they were 
they could not apply to the experiment from which I 
quote, for the reasons mentioned. Consequently we 
must at least suppose that we are dealing with facts 
less exposed than is usually the case to sceptical crit- 
icism. 

There are just three hypotheses which are capable 
of discussion in connection with such facts. They 
are (1) Fraud, (2) Telepathy, and (3) Spirits. 

155 



PSYCHICAL, RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

Secondary personality would not be presented as an 
alternative by any one who knows what that phe- 
nomenon is. Secondary personality, in respect of 
the contents of its mental action, claims to be limited 
to the normal action of the senses, and is distinguished 
from fraud in that its whole character is unconscious, 
while fraud is properly conscious deception by the 
normal subject. If fraud in this case be excluded 
from view there can be no doubt that such facts as 
have been enumerated are supernormal, whatever the 
specific explanation. But secondary personality never 
assumes the supernormal acquisition of knowledge. 
It is limited to what has been obtained in a normal 
manner by the subject. Hence it is excluded from 
view by virtue of that fact. 

As to fraud, that has been excluded from considera- 
tion in the Piper case for fifteen or twenty years, and 
only unintelligent men would talk about it any longer. 
It has come to a pass where any one who insinuates 
it must be held responsible for the evidence of his 
hypothesis. As far as possible I endeavored to con- 
duct the experiments in most cases in a manner that 
would require the critic to implicate myself in any 
fraud suspected, and in any case of that possibility 
I am hardly competent to investigate myself. But 
some of the facts make it necessary to implicate me 
in any theory of fraud. In so far as the mediums 
are concerned, I think it cannot even be suspected 
without evidence, unless the one case which is pro- 
fessional be conceded to the sceptic. For that reason 
I think it can be dismissed from the account, especially 
as the one case which certain types of minds would 

156 



EXPERIMENTS WITH MRS. PIPER 

desire to except does not figure in any incidents where 
criticism of any kind is possible. 

I do not think that telepathy as an explanation will 
fare any better. In fact I should be ashamed, as 
one who has tried to be scientific, to advance telepathy 
as an explanation of any such facts. Any man who 
knows what he means by the use of this term would 
not venture to suppose it an explanation. As I ex- 
pect to discuss the nature of telepathy in a later 
chapter I shall not give any special reasons for reject- 
ing it in such facts as have been collected here. I 
merely say that really scientific men who know what 
they are talking about, would not, in the light of the 
evidence, have the temerity to propose it as an ade- 
quate theory of phenomena involving such a system 
of " cross references " illustrative of the personal 
identity of deceased persons and nothing else. I 
do not think the hypothesis worthy of serious defense. 
It is an hypothesis worthy only of intellectual prudes. 
I should much prefer fraud as an explanation; for 
we have analogies and experiences enough to make 
that intelligible, but for the kind of telepathy nec- 
essary to cover such facts we have no adequate sci- 
entific evidence whatever. It cannot be tolerated as 
an hypothesis in such cases until its claims have been 
established for such selective work. 

As to the third hypothesis, namely, that of spirits, 
I shall not undertake any dogmatic defense. It is 
obvious to me that it is the most rational hypothesis 
after eliminating fraud from such matters, and my 
own stand in various publications would indicate what 
position I would preferably assume. But it is not 

157 



PSYCHICAL EESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

my desire in this article to argue for this conclusion. 
My main purpose has been to present the facts and 
to leave the reader to form his own conclusion, but 
to do this without concealing the preference which 
everyone perhaps knows I would make. I am quite 
willing to concede to many who have not spent a long 
time in the investigation of this complex subject the 
right still to be sceptical, and especially to doubt the 
conclusiveness of the facts making for the theory 
which seems to me the most plausible. I can only 
say to them that I have not made up my mind upon 
these facts alone, but upon the whole mass of pub- 
lished and unpublished records of psychical research. 
What I here publish is but an illustration of some 
of the most interesting and perhaps most cogent facts. 
But I shall not insist that they should be conclusive 
for the sceptic. The utmost that I shall urge upon 
him is that they make adequate investigation im- 
perative, and seeing that the phenomena illustrate 
the selective reference to the personal identity of 
deceased persons I think almost any one will admit 
that, assuming fraud to have been excluded, they 
make out a forcible case for the further investigation 
of spiritistic theories. 



158 



CHAPTER VII 

CONCLUSION OF EXPERIMENTS RELATIVE TO DR. HODG- 
SON ; THEORIES. 

I have hitherto presented matter which may be sup- 
posed to have claims for evidential character, that is, 
something* supernormal whatever the theory intended 
for their explanation. It may be interesting to take 
up some of the non-evidential matter in illustration 
of features which we have to ignore when dealing with 
scientific scepticism and which yet represent important 
psychological material in the record. 

The reader must remember two things in such a 
record as that of Mrs. Piper. (1.) There is much 
material that no scientific man would suspect to have 
a spiritistic source on its superficial appearance. (2.) 
The communications also exhibit usually a certain 
kind of confusion and fragmentary nature that per- 
plexes scientific men and the public generally. In 
dealing with the supernormal phenomena we have 
often to ignore these facts and this may as often give 
a false impression of the real character of the com- 
munications for which we are asking credence as 
coming from a transcendental world. It is, therefore, 
only fair to all persons and important to science that 
we should understand what the matter is upon which 
no stress can be laid in the argument for the super- 
normal. The facts which impress us as evidence of 
the transcendental are scattered about in a matrix 

159 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

of alleged communications which we cannot treat evi- 
dentially as such at all. But, although many com- 
munications are of such a type as not to be conclu- 
sive evidence of the supernormal, there are many 
which are confirmatory and have great value as il- 
lustrating what we should most naturally expect on 
some hypothesis of their explanation. For this rea- 
son they will have an interest scarcely less important 
to science than the actually evidential incidents. I 
shall, therefore, devote some space to a brief account 
of some of these data in the records just quoted. I 
shall only repeat to the reader that I am not quoting 
this matter in any respect as evidence of either spirits 
or the supernormal. If we have any reasons for be- 
lieving it to have the same source as the actually 
supernormal facts this conviction must have other 
grounds than their superficial claims. After the evi- 
dential demands of the supernormal have been satis- 
fied, the unity of all the phenomena with this conclu- 
sion may be sufficient to make a respectable claim for 
that source in the non-evidential statements, but I 
shall not urge this view of the communications which 
I expect to quote now. Readers may entertain what- 
ever view they please. I shall insist only that the 
statements are a part of the record making a claim 
for the existence of spirits. 

One of the first things that the trance personalities 
wished to do at the sittings referred to was to talk 
to me about my plans. They assumed the role of 
superior guides and advisers and undertook to smooth 
down my temper which had been considerably ruffled 
by the ruthless disregarding of plans which had been 

160 



CONCLUSION OF EXPERIMENTS ; THEORIES 

formulating for several years to put the work upon 
a better basis than it had ever been. There can be 
no question of the patience and tact with which these 
personalities handled the matter, though I do not 
know how much it had been discussed by other sitters 
prior to my experiments. It is probable that the 
whole mass of advice is attributable to the suggestions 
of other sitters. But I am less concerned with this 
or any other explanation than with the bare fact of 
psychological fitness and reality about it. I will say, 
however, that only one or two persons knew my state 
of mind and one of these was far distant from Bos- 
ton. It was therefore interesting to see how clearly 
the trance personalities knew my mental condition. 
They wanted to know what I was worrying about, 
and the answer on my part to this query led to a 
thorough threshing out of the matter in a perfectly 
intelligible manner representing all the play of reality 
not less interesting to the psychologist than the 
phenomena having better claims to a supernormal 
source. 

When Dr. Hodgson took his turn to communicate, 
I badgered him a little for going before I did when 
he had expected to have the pleasure of hearing from 
me first. I had broken down in health some years 
before and did not expect to recover. After a little 
chivalry on his part, as if aware of the mood in which 
I was at the time, namely, that of a resolution to 
abandon the work forever, he said : " Stick to it, 
Hyslop. I hope you will not give up the ghost." 
He then broke out with the statement : " I shall not 
stop to talk rubbish, but let us get down to facts," 

161 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

thus characteristically recognizing that it was evi- 
dence, not mere communication which we wanted. At 
once, therefore, he asked me if I remembered the 
difficulties which we had in reference to my Report, 
the fact being that we had many long discussions 
about it. I asked him presently if he remembered 
the word which he said he would have expected me 
to communicate in proof of identity. It was a word 
that I had used oftener than he liked, though he ad- 
mitted that it described exactly what the facts needed. 
He had said he would never believe it was I if I did 
not communicate that word. It was quite to the 
point, therefore, when his reply was : "I do not 
at the moment, but I will recall and repeat it for 
you. I remember how we joked about it." In fact, 
we had joked about it considerably. I have never 
mentioned the circumstance or the word to any other 
living person, and I shall not mention the word to 
any one. In reply I told him to take his time and 
then came the following : — 

" Surely I am not going to make a botch of any- 
thing if I can help it. It is so suffocating here. 
I can appreciate their difficulties better than ever 
before. Get my card?" alluding in the question 
to the fact that he had prepared his usual Christmas 
cards for his friends, but they were not sent out 
until after his death. The mention of the difficulties 
in communication was quite characteristic, as repre- 
senting the problem which we had often discussed 
together and which we wished to have presented more 
thoroughly before the public. 

After some further references to experiments which 

162 



CONCLUSION OF EXPERIMENTS ; THEORIES 

we had wished to carry out while living he interrupted 
the communications with an allusion to an unverifiable 
experience after death. He said : " It is delightful 
to go up through the cool ethereal atmosphere into 
this life and shake off the mortal body." He had 
himself believed that the spiritual world was ethereal 
and we have in this passage one of the many interpola- 
tions of communicators which represent possibilities 
but not evidence of what these phenomena purport 
to be. 

I come now to a passage which shows a number 
of interesting and important characteristics. The 
one to which I wish to call special attention is the 
abrupt change of subject that so often occurs in 
these phenomena. It is one that serves more or less 
as evidence of the theory that the mental condition 
necessary for communication, at least in the " pos- 
session " type of mediumship, is like a delirious dream 
or a wandering and dreaming secondary personality. 
Besides this abrupt change of topic the reader will 
notice also interpolations of various sorts which indi- 
cate the same conception of the process. A more 
important observation, however, to be made is one that 
no reader will realize who did not know Dr. Hodgson 
personally and intimately. It is the expression of 
thoughts which he would not have expressed while 
living in the way they are done here. There is an 
emotional color in the communications at times that 
would have been inhibited in his natural conversation. 
The presence of this in them points to the existence 
of a trance condition on the " other side " as neces- 
sary for communication with this. I do not say that 

163 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

it proves this, but that it consists with the hypothesis 
made on other grounds, though it does not explain all 
the perplexities which accompany phenomena of this 
kind. The passage which I wish to quote began 
with a more or less evidential reference to an incident 
connected with my brother in my Report published 
in 1901. My brother had taken serious objection to 
what I had said there and hence I put on record with 
Dr. Hodgson the facts confirmed by the testimony 
of three other persons as a check against any possible 
criticism of them. Let me note also for the reader 
that I never " told " him about it, but I wrote out 
the facts and sent the documents to him by mail. 
This feature of the communications is one of those 
mistakes which are so common and so natural to a 
dream-like mental state that the form of the mes- 
sages when evidential at all makes them especially 
cogent against the unscientific objection of telepathy 
in the case. To come then to the passage. 

" Do you remember telling me about some objec- 
tions your brother made because these good friends 
told about him? 

(Yes, I remember that well indeed.) 

I cannot forget anything if you give me time to 
recall. You must have great patience with me as 
I am not what I hope to be later. 

(All right, Hodgson. Do you find that we con- 
jectured the difficulties fairly well?) 

We did surprisingly well. I was surprised enough. 
Is my writing more difficult than it used to be? 

(It is about the same.) 

Do you remember anything about it? 
164 



CONCLUSION OF EXPERIMENTS ; THEORIES 

(Yes, I do.) 

I remember your comments about it, and much was 
left me to explain. 

(Yes, that is true.) 

Of course it's true. Think I am less intelligent 
because I am in the witness box? 

(No, I understand the difficulties.) 

I hope you do, but this is the happiest moment of 
coming over here. I mean in meeting you again. 

(All right, Hodgson. I feel that it would have 
been better for you to lead on this side.) 

Perhaps, but I am satisfied. Do you remember 
how I said to you I sometimes longed to get over here. 

(Yes, I expect that was true and I have heard 
persons say you said it.) 

I did often. I longed to see this beautiful country 
if I may so express it." Then followed the incident 
of our meeting in New York mentioned above. 

Now the reader should know that Dr. Hodgson 
never once expressed to- me the desire to pass to the 
other side. But as my statement implies I have heard 
others say that he had this wish. It was an intense 
wish of Frederic W. H. Myers, and from the pri- 
vations which Dr. Hodgson had to suffer in his work 
I can well imagine that he may often have wished to 
be where " the wicked ceased from troubling and the 
weary are at rest." But in asking me if I remem- 
bered his saying it, his memory lapsed, as would be 
natural in the " suffocating " condition of which com- 
plaint is made by more than one communicator. 

The reader will remark that he admits the hypothe- 
sis which we had applied to the communicator's condi- 

165 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

tion while communicating. Then he suddenly changes 
to the question of his own handwriting which has 
some relation to the point or issue which I had raised 
about the difficulties of communicating. But the form 
of his question points to a recollection, which, though 
explicable by Mrs. Piper's knowledge of the same, 
suggests on any theory a wandering consciousness. 
His handwriting was a very difficult one for me to 
read and others of his friends recognized that it 
was very scrawly. The allusion to my comments on 
it is perfectly true. As we wrote to each other on 
important matters, and as I could not read his writing 
at times, I had on several occasions to return his let- 
ters and ask for his interpretation of his own writing, 
and I indulged in some humorous observations about 
it referring to what a time I would have with it when 
he came to be a communicator, if our hypothesis about 
the difficulties of communication were true. Then as 
if under the excitement of recognition he becomes 
perfectly clear and breaks out into a natural tone 
of banter for supposing that what he says may not 
be true, though the very clearness of his intelligence 
at the time indicates a marginal conviction that he is 
not always so in the attempt to communicate. Then 
that lucid moment runs into an emotional outburst 
about his happiness at meeting me, a mood which 
might be natural enough for the time and place and 
perhaps reflecting in the message the impossibility of 
hindering the passage of mental states from beyond 
into the automatic consciousness or sub-consciousness 
of Mrs. Piper, but certainly also indicating what his 

166 



CONCLUSION OP EXPERIMENTS ; THEORIES 

friends would recognize as an interest which he would 
not express in words while living. 

At the next sitting when he turned up to commu- 
nicate he began to reproach me for losing my grit in 
this work, as it was known in some way that I meant 
to abandon it unless some reasonable spirit of co- 
operation was shown by those managing affairs. In 
the process of our interview on this matter he became 
greatly excited and confused and the hand wrote so 
heavily and rapidly that it tore the paper and when 
we managed to have it calm down the following came 
and was most likely the interpolation of the control 
or trance personality. 

" In leaving the body the shock to the spirit knocks 
everything out of one's thoughts for awhile, but if 
he has any desire at all to prove his identity he can 
in time collect enough evidence to prove his identity 
convincingly." Then Dr. Hodgson began with his 
reference to our experiment with the voice case. (See 
above p. 100.) 

In connection with this passage explaining the 
effect of death, a view quite consistent with what we 
know of physical shocks to the living consciousness, 
it might be well to quote what the trance personality 
said to me at a sitting nearly a month later. To 
try a question which was designed to test the possi- 
bility of our getting marginal thoughts of the com- 
municator instead of the main ones intended, I asked 
at this later sitting if some of the thoughts came 
through that he did not intend to send. The answer 
and colloquy was as follows: 

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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

" At times they do and then again his thoughts 
are somewhat changed. They are not exactly what 
they were when in the body. 

(Very good, I understand.) 

The change called Death which is really only tran- 
sition is very different from what one thinks before 
he experiences it. That in part explains why Myers 
never took a more active part after he came over 
here. He had much on his mind before he came which 
he vowed he would give out after he came over, but 
the shock [was such] that many of his determinations 
were scattered from his living memory. This is 
a petty excuse but a living reality — a fact. It is 
unmistakably so with every one who crosses the border 
line. 

(Yes, I can understand how this would take place 
from similar shocks among the living.) 

Amen. Well then we need give no further explana- 
tions on this point if it is understood by you. How- 
ever when expecting the best results the poorest may 
be given, unless this is fully understood by those liv- 
ing in the mortal life. It is only by simple recollec- 
tions that real proof of identity can be given." 

If I could take any special incident and compare 
it with the exact facts as known to the living there 
would be much in them to confirm such an explanation 
of the difficulty and confusion connected with the 
process of communication, assuming the spiritistic 
hypothesis to be a legitimate one. The explanation 
here given by the trance personality is certainly plaus- 
ible though we have no direct means of verifying it. 
But when we find from internal evidence of the super- 

168 



CONCLUSION OF EXPERIMENTS ; THEORIES 

normal incidents that confusion of some kind is pres- 
ent we may well entertain the possibility of a semi- 
trance on the other side, as a means of studying the 
phenomena as a whole, and hence I quote the above 
passages as a sample of statement which must engage 
the attention and respect of the psychologist, if for 
no other purpose than to show its tenability in case 
that can be done. 

A passage from Dr. Hodgson points in the same 
direction as that which I have quoted from the trance 
personalities. He says : — 

" It is, I find, most difficult to use the mechanism 
and register clearly one's recollections. I have much 
sympathy for George whom we badgered to death, 
poor fellow. He gave me all I had to hope for in 
spite of my treatment of him. Now just keep your 
patience with me and you will have all you could 
ask for. Understand ? " 

" George " refers to the man whom Dr. Hodgson 
called " George Pelham " in his Report on the Piper 
case and who was instrumental after his death in prov- 
ing to Dr. Hodgson the truth of the spiritistic hy- 
pothesis. " George " was his Christian name, but 
" Pelham " was not his surname. It was after Dr. 
Hodgson tried the hypothesis of a dream-like state as 
necessary to communicate, that he began to understand 
the difficulties in the theory. He then came to the 
conclusion that the best course to take in the experi- 
ments was to let the communicator have his own way 
and not to " badger him to death." He often re- 
marked to me that we could not get what we wanted 
if we kept nagging at the communicator. Here is 

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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

the repetition of this conception at a moment which 
the detailed record shows to have been one of confu- 
sion and excitement. 

As further illustration of the rapid movement of 
the memory from incident to incident, occasioned pos- 
sibly partly by the uninhibited process of thinking 
on the other side and by the slow mechanical process 
of the writing compared with this rapid thought in 
their world, we may continue the passage which I 
have just quoted. When he asked me to have patience 
with him and I would get all I could ask for, I went 
on: — 

" (Yes, I am quite willing to let you have your 
own way fully.) 

I shall take it in spite of you. I am determined 
to do what I think best. Do you remember the tussle 
I had with you about getting that book in order? 

(Yes, we had many tussles.) 

Indeed we did. I am wondering if you recall some 
lines I wrote you once a year or two before I came 
when you were in the mountains for your health? 

(I do not now recall them, but it is likely that I 
can find out because I have absolutely all your letters. 
Can you mention a few words of the line?) 

You remember the lines I used to quote often, run- 
ning like this : ' patience is a blessing,' and your an- 
swer, and the subject of the rest. You were pleased 
and replied they were apropos of your condition." 

Now just as I had said I had kept absolutely 
every line Dr. Hodgson ever wrote me from the time 
I arranged for my sittings with Mrs. Piper in 1898 
until his death at the end of 1905. There was there- 

170 



CONCLUSION of experiments; theories 

fore a fine chance to verify what was said here. Con- 
sequently I examined every letter written me after I 
broke down in June in 1901 until I left the mountains 
in April, 1902, and not a trace of any such lines 
appear in the correspondence. In fact not a word 
of counsel, consolation and spiritual reflection occurs 
in it. Nor do I recall any mental attitude of the 
kind in any other part of the correspondence. Dr. 
Hodgson's habit of indulging in sentiment of this 
kind, so far as I knew him, was in his Christmas 
cards which he regularly sent out to his friends each 
year at the holidays. We have then a promise to 
prove his identity as George Pelham had done, and in 
fulfillment of it an incident that is wholly false in re- 
lation to me, though possibly true in relation to some 
one else, as in the instance of the " nigger talk " first 
referred to Myers and then corrected to Prof. James 
(p. 97). We can well understand why the trance 
personality should indicate the shock which death 
may occasion to the memory in the attempt to come 
back and communicate. The incident here quoted 
has the same characteristics which a delirium would 
have, reproducing a mosaic of one's past experiences, 
telling enough to show that the facts are at least 
partly correct, as in the allusion to my being in the 
mountains for my health — a fact most probably 
known to Mrs. Piper — and another which repre- 
sented a probable trait in his character but not ex- 
hibited toward me in the manner stated. I have 
myself witnessed just such phenomena in the deliria 
of the living. 

Another passage has a striking interest as showing 
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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

an appreciation of the problem. I have said pre- 
viously that he was always on the alert for the type 
of fact that could not be explained by telepathy and 
that the message with reference to Prof. Newbold 
(p. 105) was not explicable by that hypothesis as 
applied to my mind. At my last sitting after I had 
ascertained from Prof. Newbold that the allusion 
was correct, I had also had some correspondence with 

a Dr. B , who had had a sitting and to whom 

Dr. Hodgson had made a similar statement with other 
incidents of what had happened in the conversation 
between Dr. Hodgson and Prof. Newbold on the ocean 
beach. At this last sitting Dr. Hodgson brought up 
the subject spontaneously and soon showed what re- 
lation it had to the telepathic hypothesis by the way 
he spoke of it, as the reader will perceive in my quo- 
tation. 

" Did Dr. B. prove my message? 

(Dr. B found that your message to Billy 

about some conversation that you and he had the 
last time you saw him was exactly correct and he 
was delighted with it.) 

Amen. (Yes, Hodgson, and you told me the same 
thing twice.) What thing? Before I came over? 
Do you — ■ — [remember it?] 

(Yes, Hodgson.) Oh yes, I remember it well. 
(Good.) 

There is no telepathy in this except as it comes 
from my mind to yours. 

(Good. Then telepathy is at least a part of the 
process by which you communicate with me.) 

172 



CONCLUSION off experiments; theories 

Most assuredly it is and I had a vague idea before 
I came over. 

(Yes, you did.) 

You remember our talks about the telepathic theory 
of our friends' thoughts reaching us from this side 
telepathically." 

We did have several conversations on this point and 
the reader may interpret for himself the psychological 
interest and importance of the allusion to telepathy 
in this connection, especially when it is related to an 
incident not known to myself at the time it was first 
mentioned. 

As I have already remarked I cannot produce this 
as proof of the existence of spirits, though I think 
many readers will think it of the type of evidence that 
would constitute good proof if it were not complicated 
with the personal acquaintance of the communicator 
with the medium before his death. I have been care- 
ful to quote the incidents which certainly border on 
the evidential while they as certainly appear charac- 
teristic of the alleged communicator, with such modifi- 
cations as might naturally occur both from the un- 
natural conditions under which the communications 
must be made and from the amnesic and disturbed 
mental state of the communicator, as that is supposed 
for the sake of explaining the peculiar character of 
the phenomena. But leaving this hypothesis aside 
for the moment, the incidents are a part of a large 
record which contains here and there an incident so 
specific and clear in its evidence of intelligence that, 
when fraud is eliminated from its explanation, we 
have to face an important theory to account for the 

173 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

sporadic facts while we endeavor in some way to make 
the non-evidential incidents intelligible at all. What 
these partially correct facts show above all else is the 
complications under which anything supernormal can 
be acquired, and that once admitted there is the chance 
to make the whole intelligible and rational. That is 
the chief task of the future. I suspect many are 
sufficiently puzzled for methods of explaining away 
the meaning of the most evidential facts to halt only 
at the difficulties of comprehending the circumstance 
that, if messages can come through at all from the 
transcendental world, they might be more satisfying. 
The removal of the scepticism which bases itself on 
this conception of the matter is the problem of larger 
experiments and the scientific world must undertake 
the solution of the problem in a spirit of patience 
and not make demands which would not be made in 
any other complicated inquiry. I appreciate the feel- 
ing that, if messages come at all, they should be 
clearer. But the proper attitude to take is that which 
frankly recognizes that the collective meaning of 
the evidential facts must determine the theory adopted 
and we must seek subsidiary explanations for the 
associated matter. What people often think an ob- 
jection to the spiritistic hypothesis is not this at 
all, but a perplexity in it, a subsidiary question which 
has to be answered by further inquiry. This may as 
well be understood at first as at last, and faced in the 
spirit of true scientific investigation. 

We must remember, too, that the same perplexity 
arises in any theory whatsoever that we may take in 
the case. Even the hypothesis of fraud cannot escape 

174 



CONCLUSION OF EXPERIMENTS ; THEORIES 

the duty to account for the peculiarities illustrated, 
and much more must telepathy. It is amusing to see 
the objector to the spiritistic theory accept telepathy 
without raising the question as to how it can account 
for the psychological peculiarities of the phenomena 
imitative of deliria and dream-like states on the other 
side, and yet press this limitation against the only 
theory that can give a rational explanation of them. 
If the advocate of telepathy really knew anything 
about that process or hypothesis at all he would be 
ashamed to urge it with so much confidence. He 
would find a most imperative duty to investigate it 
more carefully to see if, in the real or alleged com- 
munications between the living there were traces of 
imperfect memories and delirious mental states on 
the part of agents. I shall not deny the possibility 
of this, but until it is shown to be a scientific fact, 
which the present record of alleged telepathic phe- 
nomena does not suggest, we are not privileged scien- 
tifically to urge such a process in explanation of the 
record under discussion. The spiritistic theory may 
not be the right one. With that I am not at present 
concerned. But it is entitled to such possibilities as 
commend it against the inferior claims of other hy- 
potheses. That is all that I am urging for the mo- 
ment. Hence it is, I think, that the really scientific 
man prefers the simple theory of fraud as the more 
difficult one of the three to displace. Secondary per- 
sonality he sees does not account for the supernormal 
part of the phenomena, however it might appear to 
account for the non-evidential matter. It would be a 
curious theory which limited the explanatory functions 

175 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

of its process to what was relevant to spirits and 
wholly excluded this from matter which, though not 
evidential, is characteristic of the conjectured source 
supposed in this case. Hence I think we may pre- 
sent, at least provisionally, the hypothesis of discar- 
nate agency while we press for an investigation 
equally thorough with that of the past, and perhaps 
even more prolonged and extended in order to under- 
stand the limitations of the communications. 

I have here merely hinted at the explanations of the 
confusion and limitations of the incidents purporting 
to be messages from a spirit world. I have been try- 
ing to confine the subject and the evidence to what 
purports to come from Dr. Richard Hodgson, but 
the issue at this point is so important and the mis- 
understanding so great that I think it proper in this 
last article to diverge somewhat from the material 
affecting the personality of Dr. Hodgson and to dis- 
cuss what is apparently the most important difficulty 
in the problem and in doing so to introduce general 
evidence from other communicators and other psy- 
chics. 

I shall begin this part of the discussion by an allu- 
sion to the difficulty which it seems both laymen and 
scientific men encounter when asked to believe that 
we are communicating with spirits. This difficulty, 
which is usually stated as an objection, is due to the 
triviality and confusion of the communications. It 
occasionally takes the form of complaint that we have 
nothing to show regarding the conditions of life in 
a spiritual world. I wish to take up these matters 

176 



CONCLUSION OF EXPERIMENTS ; THEORIES 

and to deal with them as thoroughly as limited space 
will permit. 

I think I may best take as illustrative of this dif- 
ficulty some remarks of the editor of an intelligent 
newspaper which were published in reference to my 
article in the February Journal. They put into 
definite shape a number of points such as I constantly 
meet when discussing the question, and as the editorial 
treatment of the matter, though critical and sceptical, 
was entirely friendly to the investigation, it may 
conduce to a better understanding of the whole prob- 
lem to make it the subject of a careful and friendly 
reply. 

After alluding to some statements of my own ex- 
planatory of what is necessary in proof of personal 
identity, which is the primary issue for the scientific 
man, namely, trivial incidents of a past earthly life 
that are verifiable, the editor of the Providence Jour- 
nal went on with the following remarks : — 

" It is perhaps best to judge the evidence presented 
by Professor Hyslop upon this ground, although to 
many persons it will seem that this is fundamentally 
an error. To such persons the obvious possibility of 
the absorption of such ' trivial incidents ' by telepathic 
communication with the ' spirit ' before his or her de- 
parture from the flesh, however impossible might be 
any theory of acquaintance with the facts by the 
ordinary means of intercourse, will serve as a serious 
if not a definite deterrent to the acceptation of the 
relation as a proof of anything. But even casting 
aside this basic objection and admitting the concep- 

177 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

tion of Professor Hjslop to be correct, it is still im- 
possible to see wherein this narrative of experiments 
— interesting as it is — establishes the slightest link 
in the chain, which, in all sincerity, the investigators 
headed by him are endeavoring to forge. Every por- 
tion of it relates solely, in a more or less confused 
manner, to the interests of Dr. Hodgson on earth. 
There is not the faintest indication of ' supernormal 
information.' It must be said frankly that neither in 
quantity nor quality does the information presented 
lead even to the suggestion of a ' spiritistic theory.' 
If spirits, who in life possessed the intelligence of Dr. 
Hodgson, talk such muddle-headed nonsense the mo- 
ment they discard the flesh, then Heaven help the fool- 
ish ones of this earth." 

I shall first discuss the entire misunderstanding of 
the problem which this writer exhibits; a misunder- 
standing, however, which is shared by many others. 

In the first place the telepathy which this writer 
assumes and refers to " absorption " by the living 
of the thoughts of others has absolutely no scientific 
evidence whatever for its existence. You cannot quote 
the facts purporting to be from spirits in proof of it, 
because they bear so definitely on the personal iden- 
tity of deceased persons. You will have to get evi- 
dence not so related and there is absolutely none such 
of a scientific character. The thing you have to 
explain, is not the remarkable nature of the facts, but 
their uniform relation to deceased persons. Telep- 
athy which can acquire incidents about dead people 
but cannot acquire any about the living is a curious 
capacity and perilously near being devilish. It may 
be so, of course, but face that issue when you pro- 

178 



CONCLUSION OF EXPERIMENTS ; THEOEIES 

pose the assumption. Apropos of this I may ask 
also how you are going to account for the trivialities 
and confusion on such a remarkable faculty? A 
power infinite in everything but access to important 
facts is a worse anomaly in human knowledge than 
spirits can possibly be. In fact you cannot rationally 
account for the limitation to triviality at all on the 
telepathic hypothesis, while this is perfectly simple 
on the spiritistic. 

But no scientific man believes in the kind of telep- 
athy here supposed. He will only ask for inde- 
pendent evidence that it is a fact before using it as 
a substitute for a spiritistic interpretation of facts 
related only to the personal identity of deceased per- 
sons. We shall simply throw upon the adherent of 
it the responsibility for the evidence of his assumption 
and if that is forthcoming we shall consider it dis- 
passionately. 

In the second place, the writer's conception of the 
" supernormal " is wholly different from that of the 
scientific man and he strangely demands as proof of 
a future life communications which are absolutely 
unverifiable in the present stage of the inquiry. He 
complains that the evidence is confined solely to Dr. 
Hodgson's earthly life. This is precisely where the 
cogency of the facts and argument lies. We could 
not at present verify scientifically any statement 
whatever about the conditions in a transcendental 
world. " Supernormal " does not mean knowledge of 
things in a spiritual world; nor does it necessarity 
imply anything spiritual whatever. Many confuse it 
with the " supernatural," but psychic researchers 

179 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

adopted it to eliminate all the associations of that 
term and to mean something not acquired in a normal 
way. It is a purely negative term, implying nothing 
definite about either the " supernatural " or anything 
in a transcendental world. In other words, " super- 
normal " means and only means beyond or transcend- 
ing normal sense perception. It does not mean any 
special view of what is beyond and it does not in any 
respect imply the spiritual, even though this happen 
to be included in it after the investigation has gone 
far enough to justify that belief. It means nothing 
more than the fact that we have gotten something 
which cannot be explained as having a sensory origin, 
that is, an origin in normal sense perception. All 
that is verifiable must either have been acquired by 
the sense perception of the subject or must exist in 
the memory of living persons. The nature and con- 
ditions of a spiritual world and its life are not so 
verifiable, and no intelligent man would expect or 
demand, as evidence, communications of this kind in 
proof of a spiritual world, to say nothing of the im- 
possibility of making it intelligible if communication 
about it were tried. 

It is the last objection which always seems the most 
cogent to the sceptic. The writer thinks that intel- 
ligent persons like Dr. Hodgson would not or ought 
not to talk such " muddle-headed nonsense." I shall 
confidently reply at this point that the best part of 
our evidence for the spiritistic hypothesis is just this 
nonsense. What the critic thinks is a fatal objection 
is our best proof. That is a contention which may 
surprise many an objector, but it is one that I ad- 

180 



CONCLUSION OF EXPERIMENTS ; THEORIES 

vance and I am certain that it will put the sceptic 
to his wits to sustain his assumption that intelligent 
men would do much better than the evidence seems 
to indicate. I shall boldly challenge any successful 
defense of the writer's position. 

Now if Dr. Hodgson was so intelligent a person 
how would the critic account for the " absorption 
by telepathy while in the flesh " of exclusively trivial 
incidents? On the critic's assumption we ought to 
have had very intelligent messages, intelligent after 
the type of his conception. But instead of that we 
have what are alleged to be exclusively trivial facts. 
On the other hand, if the alleged communicator had 
not been an intelligent man, according to the critic's 
point of view we might explain the limitations of the 
messages. But he concedes that Dr. Hodgson's 
earthly life was intelligent and admits the exclusive 
limitation of the incidents to that life. 

But I shall not dwell on dialectics of this kind as 
they are not important. What we have to realize 
is two or three fundamental things in this problem, 
which I shall have to reiterate again and again in 
order to have the point made in the spiritistic hypoth- 
esis that is here defended. 

I recur again to the conception of the supernormal. 
I said and I repeat that it denotes the acquisition of 
information by some other means than normal sense 
perception. With this view in mind I shall again 
define the problem which is before the advocate of 
the spiritistic theory. 

There are three fundamental conditions of a spirit- 
istic hypothesis. ( 1 ) The information acquired must 

181 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

be supernormal, that is, not explicable by normal per- 
ception. (2) The incidents must be verifiable mem- 
ories of the deceased persons and so representative 
of their personal identity. (3) The incidents must 
be trivial and specific — not easily, if at all, dupli- 
cated in the common experience of others. Any other 
kind of facts will be exposed to sceptical objections 
which may be unanswerable. 

The point of view which the psychic researcher has 
to take is that of the materialist. That is, he must 
assume that the materialistic theory has the first claim 
to consideration and that the facts must at least be 
inconsistent with its claims in order to obtain any 
fulcrum for the spiritistic view. Now the material- 
istic theory maintains that consciousness is a function 
of the brain and so perishable with it. This view is 
universally conceded for the various functions of the 
bodily organism, such as digestion, circulation, secre- 
tion, etc. All these are admittedly organic functions 
and so perishable with the body. If consciousness 
is a similar function it has the same fate. Now since 
we have no evidence, apart from the alleged phenom- 
ena on record by psychic researchers, that conscious- 
ness can exist without a bodily organism, we have 
to ascertain, if possible, if the phenomena so alleged 
point to its survival. If they do, the materialistic 
theory cannot be sustained and the case is proved. 
Men may diifer as to the nature of the facts, but, 
their supernormal character once admitted, the issue 
is clearly defined and open to discussion. Any facts, 
no matter what their character and no matter what 
the logical consequences, that supply the three char- 

182 



CONCLUSION OF EXPERIMENTS ; THEORIES 

acteristics mentioned, supernormality, relevance to 
personal identity of deceased persons, and specific 
triviality, will be relevant to the conclusion which the 
spiritist draws and must be entitled to fair considera- 
tion. But we cannot assume that alleged communica- 
tions should be anything more than proof of identity, 
and we are entitled to assume that they must be this 
because it is a primary and essential condition of be- 
lieving in the existence of spirits. The messages 
may be insane, if you like, but they must be super- 
normal, specific and relevant to the identity of de- 
ceased persons. What we shall make of such a life 
is not our business as scientific men at the outset of 
our problem. What use it may be does not enter 
into any conception of the matter at first except that 
of intellectual snobs and aesthetes. We have to ex- 
plain the facts and accept the consequences. We shall 
show the use of the conclusion later in the work. 
At present the question is, not whether we are beings 
of superior intelligence after death, but whether con- 
sciousness survives death at all, and once convinced 
of that we can take up the problem of the nature of 
that survival, its limitations, if any, the perplexities 
attending the kind of messages, their confusion and 
triviality, and the rarity of the phenomena. But 
these characteristics are not objections to the hypoth- 
esis ; they are only additional issues within it. They 
are questions only after admitting it, not facts op- 
posed to it. This I think can be made clear in the 
sequel. 

Now admitting that fraud has been excluded from 
consideration of such facts as this series of articles 

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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

records I think every intelligent reader will admit 
that they conform to the three conditions of a spirit- 
istic hypothesis. I shall not here urge that they prove 
it. I simply say that these three conditions have 
been satisfied. We may have to satisfy other con- 
ditions. I leave that matter to those who do not start 
with the assumed truth or possibility of the material- 
istic theory of things. I am here testing only the 
theory of materialism. I think, therefore, that the 
satisfaction of these three conditions at least throws 
a doubt upon materialism as an explanation of con- 
sciousness, and the next question is to account for 
the peculiar character of the facts which seem to 
refute that theory. 

I think every one who reflects a moment will admit 
that only trivial facts will prove personal identity, 
whether of the living or of the dead. If it be doubted 
the experiment has only to be tried, and in a large 
system of them some years ago with Columbia Uni- 
versity students and professors I showed that rational 
men would select incidents quite as trivial, or even 
more trivial, to prove their identity over a telegraph 
wire. This circumstance, I think, removes all force 
of the alleged objection to spirit messages on the 
ground of mere triviality. 

But I am going frankly to concede that it is not 
the bare fact of triviality that gives the trouble. It 
is the two facts of (1) persistent triviality, and (2) 
confusion in the incidents, presumably suggesting a 
degenerated personality very different from the living 
person we knew in his best estate. This is the per- 
plexity which we have to face and which is implied 

184 



CONCLUSION OF EXPERIMENTS ; THEORIES 

in the article which I have quoted from the Providence 
Journal. 

It is here that I propose to urge the fundamental 
feature of a spiritistic theory, one that is an essential 
part of that hypothesis for certain types of mediums. 
I shall call them the " possession " type as distin- 
guished from the subliminal type. The term is 
tentative, though it represents a distinction between 
the phenomena which I have neither time nor space 
here to discuss, and I make it in order not to be taken 
as asserting or supposing that the view which I shall 
present assumes a universal condition of the phenom- 
ena. But I want to emphasize the adjunctive hypoth- 
esis which I mean to elaborate somewhat as one 
which explains away all the objections and difficulties 
that the sceptic has been in the habit of presenting 
against the spiritistic theory. Hitherto there has been 
no opportunity to present and discuss this aspect of 
the problem in a public way. The popular periodicals 
want sensational matter, and care little for important 
truths. The scientific journals have lived in such 
contempt of the whole subject that they would not 
permit the discussion of it, and so we have had to 
remain silent for lack of means to discuss this funda- 
mental feature of the theory before intelligent readers. 
Fortunately we have now an opportunity to present 
it and to ask consideration of it. 

What I refer to is the explanation of the persistent 
triviality and confusion of the communications which 
purport to come from the discarnate. I shall premise, 
however, that this accusation that the communications 
are always so trivial and confused is in fact not 

185 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

true. No doubt it appears so from the examples 
which we publish and discuss. On this account I 
can respect the difficulty on the part of all who have 
not made a special study of the phenomena. But 
the fact is that the communications are not always 
trivial as is supposed. There are two decided limita- 
tions to this accusation. The first is that the ques- 
tion of triviality depends wholly upon the point of 
view assumed in the problem. If the communicator 
realizes that he has his identity to prove he will nec- 
essarily limit himself to trivial recollections, assum- 
ing that he can control his state of consciousness at 
the time of his communications. Those who read the 
Piper case carefully will discover that the phenomena 
have all the appearance at least of being organized 
efforts on the " other side " to prove the identity of 
those who have passed away. The triviality thus 
becomes so important as to lose all the imputations 
implied by that term and so show a rational effort 
to solve the problem, an effort adjusted to the very 
needs of the issue. This is particularly noticeable 
in the communications of Dr. Hodgson. If the 
reader will simply study the facts in this series of 
articles in a careful and patient way he will find that 
there is a characteristic consciousness of this view of 
the matter which has not so clearly characterized 
any other communicator, unless we except George Pel- 
ham. The second limitation to the accusation is the 
fact that the statements which are not trivial and 
confused, very often, if not generally, lack evidential 
character. All communications about the other life, 
about the first experiences after death, about the laws 

186 



CONCLUSION OF EXPEEIMENTS ; THEORIES 

of life and action on the " other side " are worthless 
as evidence of the supernormal, and the student of 
abnormal psychology would consign us to bedlam if 
we put this sort of thing forward as evidence of spir- 
its. Consequently we have to select the incidents 
which have a supernormal character and which cannot 
be explained by abnormal psychology in order to 
present any support whatever for the existence of 
spirits. The argument is that, having been acquired 
from some external source, the information, owing 
to its relation to the personality of deceased individ- 
uals, can best be attributed to that source. The non- 
evidential matter has to be ignored until we are obliged 
to recognize its unity with the supernormal incidents. 
This non-evidential matter exists in large quantities 
in the Piper and similar records, but cannot be used 
in discussions affecting the integrity of spiritistic 
theories. The assertion, therefore, that the matter 
is always trivial is not exactly true, and the circum- 
stance gives us a vantage ground when the time comes 
to discuss other than evidential problems. 

I agree, nevertheless, that it is natural to complain 
of the triviality and confusion in the evidential mat- 
ter. The want of a satisfactory explanation of them 
keeps back the acceptance of the spiritistic hypothe- 
sis from many a scientific man, and hence I shall here 
state a view of the phenomena which I think com- 
pletely removes the perplexity. Whether it is true 
or not remains to be shown in the future, but it can 
be put forward as a working hypothesis and tested 
by the extent of its fitness thereto. 

The general supposition which, to the mind of Dr. 
187 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

Hodgson and myself, explains the persistent triviality 
and confusion of the messages is that the communi'- 
cating spirit at the time of communicating (not neces- 
sarily in his normal state in the spirit world), is in a 
sort of abnormal mental state, perhaps resembling 
our dream life or somnambulic conditions. We can- 
not determine exactly what this mental condition is at 
present and may never be able to do so, but it can 
be variously compared to dream life, somnambulism, 
hypnosis of certain kinds, trance, secondary person- 
ality, subliminal mental action, or any of those men- 
tal conditions in which there is more or less of disin- 
tegration of the normal memory. Ordinary delirium 
has some analogies with it, but the incidents are too 
purposive and too systematic in many cases to press 
this analogy to any general extent. But the various 
disturbances of the normal consciousness or person- 
ality in the living offer clear illustrations of the 
psychological phenomena which we produce as evi- 
dence of spirits when these phenomena are supernor- 
mally produced. 

But this hypothesis does not explain all the confu- 
sion involved. There is the more or less unusual con- 
dition of the medium, mental and physical. The me- 
dium through which the messages purport to come is 
in a trance condition, and when not a trance the con- 
dition is one which is not usual, and perhaps in the 
broad sense may be called abnormal, though not tech- 
nically this in any important sense. This condition 
offers many obstacles to perfect transmission of mes- 
sages. It is illustrated in many cases of somnam- 
bulism in which the stream of consciousness goes on 

188 



CONCLUSION OF EXPERIMENTS; THEORIES 

uninhibited, and when this is suppressed, as it is in 
deep trances, the difficulty is to get systematic com- 
munications through it. Add to this the frequently 
similar condition of the communicator, according to 
the hypothesis, and we can well imagine what causes 
triviality and confusion. The student of abnormal 
psychology will recognize the applicability of this 
view at once, even though he is not prepared to admit 
that it is a true theory. 

There are two aspects of such an hypothesis which 
have to be considered. They are its fitness or explan- 
atory character, and its evidential features. They 
are quite distinct from each other. The hypothesis 
might fit and yet have no evidence that it was a fact. 
I think, however, that all who are familiar with ab- 
normal mental phenomena will admit without special 
contention that the hypothesis will explain the trivial- 
ity and confusion of the alleged messages, but they 
will want to know what evidence exists for such a 
view. It is to this aspect of the theory that we must 
turn. 

Dr. Hodgson had discussed this supposition in his 
Report on the Piper case in 1898. It is therefore 
not new, and some incidents in his communications 
seem to point to the influence of this view on his mes- 
sages. I shall quote one passage from his Report in 
illustration of the hypothesis and of some of his evi- 
dence for it. 

" That persons i just deceased,' " says this Report, 
(p. 377), " should be extremely confused and unable 
to communicate directly, or even at all, seems per- 
fectly natural after the shock and wrench of death. 

189 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

Thus in the case of Hart, he was unable to write the 
second day after his death. In another case a friend 
of mine, whom I may call D., wrote, with what ap- 
peared to be much difficulty, his name and the words, 
' I am all right now. Adieu,' within two or three days 
after his death. In another case, F., a near relative 
of Madame Elisa, was unable to write on the morn- 
ing after his death. On the second day after, when 
a stranger was present with me for a sitting, he 
wrote two or three sentences, saying, ' I am too weak 
to articulate clearly,' and not many days later he 
wrote fairly well and clearly, and dictated also to 
Madame Elisa, as Amanuensis, an account of his 
feelings at finding himself in his new surroundings. 
Both D. and F. became very clear in a short time. 
D. communicated later on frequently, both by writing 
and speech, chiefly the latter, and showed always an 
impressively marked and characteristic personality. 
Hart, on the other hand, did not become so clear till 
many months later. I learned long afterwards that 
his illness had been much longer and more fundamen- 
tal than I had supposed. The continued confusion in 
his case seemed explicable if taken in relation with 
the circumstances of his prolonged illness, including 
fever, but there was no assignable relation between his 
confusion and the state of my own mind." 

The allusion in this passage to the effect of the 
shock of death recalls the passage quoted above (p. 
189) and representing Rector, the control, as remark- 
ing this effect to me as an apology for the confused 
and fragmentary communications from Dr. Hodgson 

190 



CONCLUSION OF EXPERIMENTS ; THEORIES 

himself. But as Mrs. Piper at least had the oppor- 
tunity to read, and perhaps actually did read the 
whole of Dr. Hodgson's Report, we cannot speak of 
the incident as evidential. It is merely consistent with 
an hypothesis based on other grounds. But the allu- 
sion to Mr. Myers in this connection, as the reader 
will see by referring to the passage quoted, has some 
pertinence. It is true that Mr. Myers never accom- 
plished by way of communication what was expected 
of him and what he himself expected before his death 
to do. The explanation of his failure is perfectly ra- 
tional, though not evidential. 

But the proper evidence for this dream life or semi- 
trance and somnambulic condition will be found in in- 
cidents which also contain supernormal facts. I quote 
one of remarkable interest. A man who had had sit- 
tings with Mrs. Piper before his death, some time 
after his decease, which took place in Paris, turned up 
as a communicator without Mrs. Piper having known 
of his death. He had always been perplexed by the 
confusion and fragmentary nature of the messages of 
his deceased friend George Pelham. When he him- 
self became a communicator it was some time before 
he was able to communicate clearly. When he could 
communicate he delivered the following message to 
Dr. Hodgson: 

" What in the world is the reason you never call for 
me? I am not sleeping. I wish to help you in iden- 
tifying myself. I am a good deal better now. 

(You were confused at first.) 

Very, but I did not really understand how confused 
191 



PSYCHICAL, RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

I was. I am more so when I try to speak to you. 
I understand now why George spelled his words to 
me." 

The allusion to George Pelham's spelling out his 
words is an evidential incident, as it was verifiable and 
recognizes after death the explanation of confusions 
which he could not understand while living. A sim- 
ilar though not evidential passage came from this 
George Pelham himself. It represents the point of 
view which I am advancing to account for the curious 
nature of the messages, and was perhaps the commu- 
nication which suggested the theory to Dr. Hodgson. 
I quote it from the latter's Report. 

" Remember we have and always shall have our 
friends in the dream life, i. e., your life so to speak, 
which will attract us for ever and ever, and so long as 
we have any friends sleeping in the material world; 
— you to us are more like as we understand sleep, you 
look shut up as one in prison, and in order for us to 
get into communication with you, we have to enter into 
your sphere, as one like yourself asleep. This is just 
why we make mistakes as you call them, or get con- 
fused and muddled, so to put it H." 

At this point Dr. Hodgson read over the automatic 
writing to indicate that he had gotten the message 
and how he understood it. The communications then 
went on. 

" Your thoughts do grasp mine. Well now you 
have just what I have been wanting to come and 
make clear to you, H., old fellow. 

(It is quite clear.) 

Yes, you see I am more awake than asleep, yet I 
192 



CONCLUSION OF EXPERIMENTS; THEORIES 

cannot come just as I am in reality, independently of 
the medium's light. 

(You come much better than the others.) Yes, be- 
cause I am a little nearer and not less intelligent than 
some others here." 

At one of Dr. Hodgson's later sittings the same 
communicator, George Pelham, used the word " pris- 
oned " in a passage in which " prisoning " was in 
Dr. Hodgson's view the more correct term, and he 
suggested the correction. George Pelham broke out 
with the reply : — 

" See here, H., e Don't view me with a critic's eye, 
but pass my imperfections by.' Of course I know all 
that as well as anybody on your sphere. I tell you, 
old fellow, it don't do to pick [out] all these little 
errors too much when they amount to nothing in one 
way. You have light enough and brain enough I 
know to understand my explanations of being shut 
up in this body [that of the medium] dreaming as it 
were and trying to help on science." 

The possibility of all this every reader must ad- 
mit, when he has once felt the force of the supernor- 
mal matter in favor of the spiritistic theory, though 
he will rightly hold that it is not evidence of any con- 
clusive kind. But it hangs together well with the 
character of the messages in all cases, and when we 
recall our own power to tell something of the mental 
status of a man who is talking to us or whose book 
we are reading we may well admit that the confused 
and fragmentary nature of the messages suggest and 
confirm the view taken in these communications. 

A certain gentleman was a member of the Board 
193 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

of Trustees of the American Institute for Scientific 
Research and Dr. Hodgson knew both the man and 
this fact of his membership. This gentleman re- 
signed from the Board some months after the death 
of Dr. Hodgson, a fact which was most probably not 
known to Mrs. Piper. In one of my sittings the fol- 
lowing occurred: 

" Is X. with you ? 

(No, he resigned.) 

What for? I thought so. 

(Well, Hodgson, it is best not to say publicly.) 

I am not public, am I? 

(Well, it would stand in my record, Hodgson.) 

Oh, of course. I understand." 

Now the interest of this incident lies in this simple 
fact. Dr. Hodgson was familiar for eighteen years 
with the record of Mrs. Piper's sittings, and for ten 
years with the careful record of what was done in 
both speech and writing. Here he is apparently 
wholly unaware of what is going on in the commu- 
nications. His mental condition has apparently made 
him oblivious to the fact of record, or what the trance 
personalities or controls call " registering " a mes- 
sage. Amnesia had come on as an accident or con- 
comitant of the condition necessary for communicat- 
ing, at least for all that affected the unnecessary parts 
of his communications. The control of the stream 
of consciousness is not so perfect as in the earthly 
life. The reasons for this cannot be made clear here, 
but the psychiatrist will understand it from his knowl- 
edge of uninhibited mental processes. 

in 



CONCLUSION OF EXPERIMENTS ; THEORIES 

One of the best illustrations of this is Rector's 
statements of the reason for the difficulties of commu- 
nicating, as the reader may have noticed above (p. 
189). The passage, of course, is not evidential, but 
when the spiritistic hypothesis has been rendered ra- 
tional by evidential matter it is not unreasonable to 
examine statements of this kind with patience and to 
give them the status of a working hypothesis to 
ascertain whether it may not be confirmed by other 
characteristics of the phenomena. 

I quote some statements communicated at the sitting 
of February 27th, 1906. After a question that I 
had asked regarding a certain word that would bear 
on his identity, Dr. Hodgson alluded to the danger of 
" making a botch " of his messages and broke out 
with the statement : " It is so suffocating here. I 
can appreciate their difficulties better than ever be- 
fore." Here he was intimating ideas which he held 
as to the difficulty of communicating before he him- 
self passed away, and he had often compared the in- 
fluence of the conditions to that of mephitic gases, and 
we know what effect they have on the integrity of 
consciousness. A few minutes after the deliverance of 
this statement, and with it in mind, I asked if we had 
conjectured the difficulties fairly well. The reply 
was : " We did surprisingly well. I was surprised 
enough," and then at once passed to communications 
about his own handwriting which had often been illeg- 
ible to me when he was living. The admission here 
of suffocation points to the hypothesis which I have 
advanced, though in no way proving it, and his man- 

195 



PSYCHICAL. RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

ner of admitting the correctness of our view regard- 
ing the difficulties is a fact consistent with the 
hypothesis. 

We have only to study dreams and deliria in order 
to understand the influences which tend to produce con- 
fusion and fragmentary messages. If accidents and 
shocks in life which are less violent than death disturb 
the memory, as we know they do, the student of ab- 
normal psychology, being perfectly familiar with the 
phenomena in numerous cases, would expect that so 
violent a change as death would disturb memory and 
reproduction still more seriously. Add to this the 
mind's freedom from the body with all the physiolog- 
ical inhibitions cut off, and we might well expect less 
control of the processes which recall the past in the 
proper way for illustrating one's identity. This dis- 
turbance might not last indefinitely. The individual 
might fully recover from it in a normal spiritual life, 
though the time for this recovery might vary with 
individuals and with the circumstances of their death. 
But the recovery of a normal mental balance in the 
proper ethereal environment on the " other side " 
would not of itself be a complete guarantee of its 
retention when coming into terrestrial and material 
conditions to communicate. We may well suppose it 
possible that this " coming back " produces an effect 
similar to the amnesia which so often accompanies a 
shock or sudden interference with the normal stream 
of consciousness. The effect seems to be the same 
as that of certain kinds of dissociation which are now 
being studied by the student of abnormal psychology, 
and this is the disturbance of memory which makes 

196 



CONCLUSION OF EXPERIMENTS ', THEORIES 

it difficult or impossible to recall in one mental state 
the events which have been experienced in another. 

For at least superficial indications in the records 
that this is the case I shall simply repeat my reference 
to the first part of this article in which I quote at 
such length the fragmentary and confused messages 
purporting to come from Dr. Hodgson. I need not 
requote them here. They at least apparently illus- 
trate in a clear manner the point I am making. 

Nor do I rely upon the Piper case alone for evi- 
dence of the conditions here conjectured. I have had 
similar statements made through two other private 
mediums, whom I have quoted in this series of articles. 
In some cases the language is identical with that used 
through Mrs. Piper, though its use in Mrs. Piper was 
not known by the other person through whom it came. 

One good illustration of this abnormal mental con- 
dition on the part of communicators is found in an 
incident told me by Dr. Hodgson before his death and 
which I have mentioned elsewhere in another periodi- 
cal. It was the incident of a communicator telling 
through Mrs. Piper a circumstance which he said had 
represented some act of his life. But inquiry showed 
that no such act had been performed by him when 
living. But it turned out that he had made the same 
statement in the delirium of death. It is especially 
noticeable in certain forms of communication of the 
" possession " type that the last scenes of the deceased 
are acted over again in their first attempts to control 
or communicate. The mental confusion relevant to 
the death of my father was apparent in his first at- 
tempt to communicate through Mrs. Piper, and when 

197 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

I recalled this period of his dying experience this con- 
fusion was repeated in a remarkable manner with 
several evidential features in the messages. Twice 
an uncle lost the sense of personal identity in the at- 
tempt to communicate. His communications were in 
fact so confused that it was two years before he be- 
came at all clear in his efforts. He had died as the 
result of a sudden accident. Once my father, after 
mentioning the illness of my living sister and her 
name, lost his personal identity long enough to con- 
fuse incidents of himself and his earthly life with 
those that applied to my sister and not to himself. 
The interesting feature of the incident was that, hav- 
ing failed to complete his messages a few minutes pre- 
viously, when he came back the second time to try it 
again, Rector, the control, warned me that he was a 
little confused, but that what he wanted to tell me 
certainly referred to my sister Lida. Then came the 
message claiming experiences for himself when liv- 
ing that were verifiable as my sister's. On any theory 
of the facts a confused state of mind is the only ex- 
planation of them, and when associated with incidents 
of a supernormal and evidential character they afford 
reasonable attestation of the hypothesis here sug- 
gested. 

I shall give one long and complicated instance of 
this confusion in an incident having great evidential 
value and yet showing remarkable confusion involving 
apparently the loss of the sense of personal identity 
and the correction of the error in the first allusion 
to the incidents. 

198 



CONCLUSION OF EXPERIMENTS ; THEORIES 

At the sitting of June 6th, 1899, (Proceedings, 
Vol. XVI, pp. 469-470), I thought I would test the 
telepathic theory by asking my father incidents that 
had occurred before I was born and that my two 
aunts, then living, would know. I made this request 
and was told at once that this would not be so difficult 
a thing to do. In a few moments several things were 
communicated, one of which was verifiable and one 
of which came within my memory as an incident told 
me, not as remembered personally. Then one of the 
aunts was mentioned by name, Eliza, and an incident 
told which I could not verify. Then the communi- 
cator at once broke out into the following clear state- 
ment, purporting to come from my father : — 

" I have something better. Ask her if she recalls 
the evening when we broke the wheel to the wagon 
and who tried to cover it up so it would not leak out, 
so to speak. I remember it as if it happened yester- 
day, and she will remember it too." 

When interrogated as to the truth of this my aunt 
said that no such accident had ever occurred in the 
life of my father and herself. The consequence was 
that in my Report on the Piper case, published in 
1901, I had to say that the incident was wholly false 
or unverifiable. No ascertainable meaning was then 
to be obtained with reference to its real pertinence. 

On February 5th, 1900, at another sitting this aunt 
was again spontaneously mentioned by my father pur- 
porting to communicate and I made some statement 
about my difficulty in getting verification for some of 
the incidents he had told of their early life, telling 

199 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

him of her dislike and opposition to the whole sub- 
ject. There came the following response through the 
automatic writing of Mrs. Piper : — 

" Oh, I understand. Of course, I see clearly. 
Well, tell her I do not intend to say anything which 
would be distasteful to her, but if she will only help 
me in my recollections of our childhood days it will 
be doing nothing but right, and it will help to prove 
my true existence to you. James, I am your father, 
and there is no gainsaying it. 

What I would now ask is that Eliza should recall 
the drive home and — let me see a moment — I am 
sure . . . but it was one of shafts, but the wagon 
broke, some part of it, and we tied it with a cord. 
I remember this very well. Do you remember old 
Tom?" 

Now Tom was the name of a horse in my time and 
long after the childhood of my aunt Eliza, and he died 
somewhere about 1880. He had no connection with 
any drive that my father could have taken before I 
was born. The reader, however, will remark the 
abrupt play of memory in this matter, the exhibition 
of uninhibited association which is characteristic of a 
dream-like state of consciousness. 

But when I asked my aunt Eliza about the accident 
it was again denied as never having occurred in her 
life with my father, nor with any one else so far as 
she knew. I had, therefore, to declare this false. 

On June 3rd, 1902, I had another sitting with Mrs. 
Piper, and my uncle, who had been such a confused 
communicator in my earlier experiments, turned up, 
so to speak. He began some confused messages and 

200 



CONCLUSION OP EXPERIMENTS ; THEORIES 

I determined to ask a test question of his identity. 
But before continuing the statements of the record 
I should detail an incident that occurred with this 
uncle and myself the day after my father's death. 
He had married this aunt Eliza, my father's sister. 

My father died on Saturday. On the Sunday fol- 
lowing, while my father was lying a corpse in this 
uncle's house, a telegram came from Chicago which 
had to be delivered in the country. My uncle and I 
took a buggy and went into the country to deliver the 
telegram. While passing a negro boy with a goat 
and wagon the horse shied, turned the buggy over, 
dragged it over both of us — my uncle holding on to 
the lines — injured the wheels, broke the shaft and 
the harness, and we had to tie them up with straps 
and strings. When we got home it was dusk, and 
we resolved to say nothing about the accident to 
any one in the house. But both of us were so badly 
injured that we could not conceal it longer than the 
next morning, that of the funeral. I was six months 
getting over the effects and my uncle perhaps as long. 

When my uncle came to communicate on this occa- 
sion of June 3rd, 1902, I had these incidents in mind 
when I resolved to ask my test question. I now 
quote the record. 

" (You and I took something together, you remem- 
ber, just after father passed out.) 

You are thinking of that ride. I guess I do not 
forget it. My head is troublesome in thinking. I 
hope to be clearer soon. This is my second attempt. 

(You can tell what happened in that ride when you 
can make it clear.) 

201 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

I will. Do you remember a stone we put together. 
Not quite right. I'll see you again. Farewell. He 
has gone out to think." [Last remark by Rector in 
explanation of the confusion.] 

The next day this uncle returned to the task and 
began with incidents that were not verifiable in my 
experience and that were as confused and erroneous 
as that which I have been quoting. I repeated my 
question to bring him back to the subject. 

" (Please to tell me something about that ride just 
after father passed out. ) 

Your father told you about it before, but had it 
on his mind, Eliza. 

(If you can tell it, please to do so.) 

Do you remember the stone we put there. 
(Where?) At the grave. 

(Whose grave?) Your father's. You mean this 
ride. (No.) 

I think we are thinking of different things. You 
don't mean that Sunday afternoon, do you ? 

(Yes, that's right.) 

Yes, I remember well the breakdown, etc." 

The communicator then went on in the most frag- 
mentary way and alluded to breaking the harness, the 
wheel, said we had a red horse and that it had been 
frightened by a dog [it was a goat], that we tied the 
broken harness with a string and got home late in 
the evening, remarking: " Oh, I am your uncle all 
right." 

It would take up too much space to give the de- 
tailed account which is very confused. But the com- 
municator specified the main events in the incident of 

202 



CONCLUSION OF EXPERIMENTS j THEORIES 

our experience at the time mentioned. They were 
all substantially correct, except the reference to the 
dog, most of them exactly correct. 

The most important thing to remember about this 
set of incidents is that they correct an error in my 
original Report and do it in a way to indicate that 
the first attempt was associated with an unusual mental 
state on the part of the communicator. Of course, 
the whole incident depends for its value on the exclu- 
sion of fraud from its character, and as we assume 
that this has been done we do not take that hypothesis 
into account here in the discussion. Accepting the 
exclusion of fraud the incidents represent one of the 
best evidential cases that I know for the exclusion of 
telepathy from their explanation. The event, too, ex- 
plains the meaning of the confused statements by my 
father. My uncle, if I may state the matter con- 
structively in regard to the " other side," had given 
the incident to my father who was a better communi- 
cator, thinking that it would identify him to me and 
his wife, my father's sister Eliza. But in his mental 
confusion my father gave as an incident in his own 
life before I was born one that had occurred with me 
and his brother-in-law the day after his own death, 
and this error is corrected by my uncle long after- 
ward and amidst nearly as much mental confusion as 
that in which the original error was committed. There 
is here more or less evidence of the loss of the con- 
sciousness of personal identity, a condition quite 
closely resembling that of delirium, and that certainly 
characterizes most of our dreams. Only the relation 
of the incidents is wanting in the first mention of it 

203 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

to indicate its meaning and that relation is concealed 
by the failure to indicate that the experience was that 
of someone else than the narrator. 

What first strikes one in the incident is the absurd- 
ity of explaining it by any form of telepathy, assum- 
ing that the facts guarantee the existence of super- 
normal information, and with the exclusion of that 
hypothesis we have no alternative to the admission of 
the spiritistic with its accompaniment, in this instance, 
of some other difficulty than mediumistic obstacles to 
the transmission of the message. No doubt there are 
hindrances to clear communications in the physical and 
mental conditions of the medium. But in this in- 
stance the claim, implied in the message as I received 
it from my father, that the incidents were personal 
experiences associated with his life before I was born 
and the abruptness of their introduction in connection 
with events with which they were not historically asso- 
ciated, indicates a phenomenon exactly like dreams 
and deliria, recognizable by any one who has studied 
psychology. Assuming then that this instance, with 
others, indicates some unnatural mental state as a con- 
dition of communicating, at least in " possession " 
types of mediumship, we have a perfectly rational ex- 
planation of the persistent triviality and confusion in 
the messages. In fact the detailed records of such 
phenomena have only to be patiently studied in order 
to give the phenomena that intelligibility and ration- 
ality as spiritistic communications which cannot be ap- 
preciated on any other hypothesis, and this because the 
nature and limitations of the communications are such 
as we might expect from human personality laboring 

204 



CONCLUSION OF EXPERIMENTS ; THEORIES 

under difficulties which are not so apparent on other 
theories, especially as the assumption of telepathy 
must face the contradiction between its immense pow- 
ers to account for the true facts and its limitations in 
the errors. 

One incident in the communications by George Pel- 
ham about Dr. Hodgson bears on the main point. 
There is evidence — too complicated to detail in this 
chapter — that the communicator is less disturbed 
mentally (and perhaps not at all after a certain period 
of time) in his normal state on the " other side " than 
when communicating. I quoted the instance (p. 128) 
in which George Pelham said regarding Dr. Hodgson, 
that " normally he is all right, but when he comes 
into our wretched atmosphere he goes all to pieces." 
If we take the various records in my possession repre- 
senting apparent attempts on Dr. Hodgson's part to 
communicate through other mediums than Mrs. Piper 
it is clear that this statement of George Pelham is 
perfectly true, and that he does better through Mrs. 
Piper than elsewhere, though he has more difficulty 
even there than many other communicators. 

But instead of producing evidence of this sort 
which many may question altogether, we may look at 
the situation in another way. We may concede for 
the sake of argument that all this is not proof, though 
some of the incidents containing supernormal infor- 
mation and characteristics of mental confusion at 
the same time can hardly be refused evidential value 
in reference to the claim here made. But not to in- 
sist on this way of discussing the hypothesis, there is 
one method that the scientific man cannot dispute. 

205 



tSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

This is to present the case in the light of a working 
hypothesis. This means that we shall simply ask if 
the hypothesis does not actually fit the facts and then 
try its application to see if it will remain consistent 
with them throughout. That is to say we may say 
to ourselves, " Let us see if it will actually explain 
the perplexities which are suggested by all this trivial- 
ity and confusion." If we find the hypothesis fitting 
the facts we recognize that it is the correct one to en- 
tertain until we find reason to reject it. 

Now if intelligent people — and this means those 
who are familiar with secondary personality, with 
dream states and deliria, and with abnormal 
psychology generally — will only imagine the pos- 
sibility of what is here supposed and then study the 
detailed records with a view of ascertaining whether 
it fits enough of the facts to explain their perplexities 
on the points mentioned, I am confident that they 
will find that the whole subject clears up, and its per- 
plexities yield to a perfectly simple conception of their 
cause, though they will find the same difficulties in ex- 
plaining certain specific details that any hypothesis 
has to meet. 

I have occupied attention regarding the conditions 
affecting the communicator in the process of sending 
messages from a transcendental world. These were 
supposed to account for the confusion and triviality 
of the messages. I shall say, however, that the dream- 
like trance of the communicator is not the only cause 
of the characteristics in the messages that have so 
long given rise to objections against the spiritistic 
hypothesis. There is another and just as important 

206 



CONCLUSION OF EXPERIMENTS ; THEORIES 

a source of the confusion and possibly of the error in 
the communications. This is the mental condition 
of the medium. That this should in some way affect 
the communications would, perhaps, be admitted with- 
out dispute by any one who was familiar with 
psychology, especially of the abnormal type. But 
the point to be decided would be that which regards 
the nature of that influence and in what special respect 
the communications are affected by that mental condi- 
tion. In general the simple answer to this query 
would be that it would most naturally vary with the 
condition in which the medium was at the time. 

We must remember that the idea of a trance is not 
a fixed and clear one. Trance is but a name for an 
exceedingly fluctuating condition and that is not ex- 
actly the same in different mediums. The effect of 
this condition on messages intromitted into the 
psychic's mind will vary with the nature of that 
trance. If the medium remains normally conscious 
the first question to be raised would be whether the 
cleavage between the supraliminal or ordinary normal 
consciousness and the subliminal or subconscious men- 
tal activities is great enough to exclude the normal 
interpreting and other processes from modifying the 
thoughts introduced into the mind from the outside. 
In some cases the messages enter the normal con- 
sciousness either as a condition of their delivery or as 
an incident of it. In others they are delivered with- 
out any apparent knowledge of their coming or of 
their nature. On the other hand if the supraliminal 
consciousness is suspended the subconscious action of 
the mind may reproduce all the influences of the nor- 

207 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

mal mind except its memory of their occurrence or of 
the messages. Only when the trance extends to the 
subconscious processes can we expect the removal of 
the interpreting action of the mind through which 
messages otherwise come. Even then we generally 
or always find the existence of limitations determined 
by the habits and experience of the medium, such as 
the spelling, style of writing, and even the use of 
terms. I have often seen the same message through 
different mediums expressed in different terms char- 
acterized by the difference of mental habits in the 
cases. Thus a medium who is in the habit of using the 
word " Sunday " in her normal life will most likely 
employ this term — not always, as much depends on 
the depth of the trance — while one used to the term 
" Sabbath " may employ that for the same message. 
I know one that was accustomed to spell the word 
" coughs " thus, " caughts " in her normal state, and 
it was so spelled in the trance, though the communi- 
cator would never have so spelled it, and in this case 
there were many supernormal incidents accompanying 
the language and automatic writing through which 
they came. In another the term " agoing," which 
was the natural expression of the medium's normal 
life for the idea conveyed, was given in the same sen- 
tence which had " going " in the case of Mrs. Piper. 
In still another the automatic writing would produce 
one word and the normal consciousness would think 
of another and synonymous or similar word. 

All these when they occur show unmistakable in- 
fluences from the mind of the medium upon messages 
intromitted into it. All that remains after the ad- 

208 



CONCLUSION OF EXPERIMENTS ; THEORIES 

mission of the fact of this influence is the determina- 
tion of the extent of it by the study of actual and con- 
crete instances. I shall devote a little time to the 
study of the phenomena of Mrs. Verrall which were 
published in the last Report of the English Society. 
It is one of the most important documents in this re- 
spect that has been published by the Society, though 
it does not give as much of the detailed record as is 
desirable. 

The important fact to remember is that Mrs. Ver- 
rall does not go into a trance, but remains normally 
conscious when the automatic writing is done. It is 
also just as important to remember that we do not 
require to hold any special theory of interpretation 
regarding the phenomena occurring in her case. We 
may accept telepathy as an adequate explanation if 
we so prefer, it will not alter the view which I here 
mean to take regarding the influences affecting the 
" messages " recorded. It is apparently certain, and 
one would hardly be wrong in saying that it was 
demonstrated, that supernormal connection between 
two minds occurred in the various cases represented in 
that report, with important indications of failure, such 
as would most naturally occur in instances involving 
the modification of extraneously introduced informa- 
tion. In what I wish to quote, therefore, from that 
report illustrative of subjective influences on mes- 
sages, I do not assume the spiritistic interpretation 
of the incidents. I need not go farther than telep- 
athy between the living to account for the super- 
normal in the phenomena. What is undoubted in the 
matter is the difficulty of getting messages through 

209 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

without disturbing their integrity by the various sub- 
conscious agencies which affect all mental action, even 
of the normal and supraliminal consciousness. 

Mrs. Verrall is a teacher of the classical languages 
and many of her automatic writings appear in Greek 
and Latin, even when the " message " is sent in 
English. It seems that her mental habits have some- 
thing to do, as in the other instances quoted, with the 
form in which the " messages " appear. It matters 
not whether we interpret the phenomena as telepathic 
or spiritistic, the latter hypothesis not being so plaus- 
ible as in the case of Mrs. Piper and others. But 
theories aside, it is clear that the form of expression 
exhibits the influence of her own mind whatever its 
original source. 

At a sitting with Mrs. Piper a certain communica- 
tor claimed to have been able to impress Mrs. Verrall's 
daughter with the phantasm of a hand and a book. 
Dr. Hodgson suggested that he get her to see his hand 
holding a spear. Mrs. Piper was near Boston and 
Mrs. Verrall in England. It seems that the attempts, 
however, to impress the daughter were failures. One 
day soon after Mrs. Verrall, amid seven Greek words 
and six Latin words wrote the Greek word Sphairas 
and the Latin word volatile ferritin, their English 
equivalents being " Spheres " and " Spear." Now 
the communicator, when the message in Boston was 
given as a spear, at first understood it to be " sphere " 
and had to have it corrected. The same mistake is 
made, the reader will remark, in the delivery of it in 
England. But the English " spear " comes out in 
Latin equivalents. Whatever the source of the mes- 

210 



CONCLUSION OF EXPERIMENTS ; THEORIES 

sage to Mrs. Verrall it is apparent that her subcon- 
scious mental action is involved in the result. The 
evidence for the supernormal in the case is consider- 
able and the limitations of its delivery are quite ap- 
parent. Besides, the partial mistake suggests that 
the agent delivering the message was in a state of 
secondary personality subject to just the kind of 
mental action which that conception implies. That 
is, the trance of the communicator, when he commu- 
nicates in England, like two separate hypnotic states, 
is continuous with that in America. The memory 
nexus is with the condition in which the message to be 
taken to England was received. Consequently we 
have in the incident at least a possible illustration of 
abnormal mental conditions in the communicator and 
subconscious influences in the medium through whom 
the message has to be delivered. 

Another interesting illustration of subconscious 
agencies in the alleged messages is an experiment 
made between Mrs. Verrall and Mrs. Forbes. The 
two ladies agreed to try communications between each 
other. They were and are both living. Mrs. Forbes 
also does automatic writing. 

On a certain date the writing of Mrs. Forbes al- 
luded to Mrs. Verrall's reading a book. As Mrs. 
Verrall had been reading the Symposium of Plato on 
the day mentioned and as some evident allusion to 
the Symposium had been made through her own auto- 
matic writing a year previous, she resolved to watch 
for further references to it in the automatic writing 
of Mrs. Forbes. For some months the automatic 
writing of Mrs. Forbes contained distinct allusions 

211 



. PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

to this dialogue and the contents of a certain passage. 
But the interesting feature of the allusions is that it 
was long before even a Greek letter could be gotten 
through Mrs. Forbes, who did not know the language. 
The automatic writing of Mrs. Verrall was rich in its 
reproduction, and the apparent communicator 
through Mrs. Forbes was the same person. Once 
Mrs. Forbes got the syllable " SYMP " and seemed 
unable to go any further with it, but finally ended 
with " a the tic." Then in later attempts the word 
" sympathy " was substituted for this, and very often 
that word is found in the messages, showing sublim- 
inal association and reproduction, the idea of the 
" Symposium " never having occurred to her in the 
writing, as it most naturally would not do so, since 
she was not acquainted with the Greek language or 
literature. 

It would be a long story to illustrate the whole 
series of communications between Mrs. Verrall and 
Mrs. Forbes, and I have chosen only two conspicuous 
instances of the influence of the medium's mind on 
the messages transmitted, as they suffice to indicate 
the contention advanced. We may readily under- 
stand how large this influence may be when it is ad- 
mitted to exist at all, and the study of detailed records 
will exhibit this to any and all who give time and 
patience to their study. The facts will fully justify 
the hypothesis assumed to account for triviality and 
confusion. 

In order to understand clearly the influences which 
we have been assuming as disturbing the communica- 
tions on the spiritistic hypothesis I may summarize 

»1* 



CONCLUSION OF EXPERIMENTS ; THEORIES 

the situation which I conceive to be the fact in such 
cases as I have been discussing. I have stated that 
the hypothesis assumes the communicator to be in an 
abnormal mental condition and that the medium in- 
fluences the messages consciously or unconsciously by 
the action of his or her mind. To make this clearer 
I shall state briefly the conditions under which experi- 
ments are made and the assumptions which are made 
and supported by a certain amount of evidence re- 
garding the mental agencies at work in disturbing 
communications. There are three general conditions 
with various subordinate possibilities and circum- 
stances affecting the mental action of all concerned. 

1. There is the unusual condition of the medium, 
whether in a trance or a conscious state. In the 
broadest terms it can be described as abnormal, mean- 
ing that it is not the usual and normal condition of 
most people, but one in which various interrupted and 
perhaps dissociated mental activities take place. This 
condition varies in all degrees between normal con- 
sciousness and the deepest states of unconsciousness. 
The name trance is employed, not to describe its known 
character, but simply to indicate that the phenomena 
occurring in it cannot be classified with those of other 
and better known conditions. Communications be- 
tween different minds, whatever the theory we adopt 
about them, would naturally be affected by the mental 
conditions through which they passed. 

2. There is then the trance personality which is 
named the " control " in mediumistic cases and which 
claims to be a discarnate spirit. Assuming, as may 
be done in some cases, that this trance personality is 

213 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

a spirit, the hypothesis is that the " control " is in a 
trance or automatic mental condition as necessary to 
manage the medium through which the messages are 
transmitted. It is apparent that, if this hypothesis 
be entertained, the communications, coming through 
this mind, must be correspondingly modified. Of 
course, we may treat the trance personality or " con- 
trol " as a subconscious self of the medium and not as 
a spirit at all. This fact will not affect the hypothe- 
sis in so far as it represents psychological conditions 
influencing the communications. The cleavage be- 
tween a secondary personality and the normal con- 
sciousness is often quite as great as between two inde- 
pendent persons. Indeed often the communication 
between one's subconscious and conscious states is as 
difficult as between two different persons. This, in 
fact, is the reason that the functions of secondary per- 
sonality so clearly imitate spiritistic phenomena and 
deceive so many with the belief that they are com- 
municating with a spirit world when they are but 
dealing with subconscious states simulating it, the 
simulation never reaching the stage of supernormal 
information. Hence whether we assume the trance 
personality to be a spirit or a subconscious self we 
are confronted with a similar set of psychological 
conditions affecting the connection between either of 
these and the normal consciousness or motor action 
of the medium. 

3. There is the hypothetical condition of the com- 
municator, when we assume the spiritistic hypothesis 
to account for the supernormal phenomena bearing 
upon the personal identity of certain deceased persons. 

214 



CONCLUSION OF EXPERIMENTS ; THEORIES 

This dream-like state or trance of the discarnate per- 
sons represents the third set of abnormal mental con- 
ditions affecting the character of the messages. 

We have, therefore, the following conception of 
the process in communications purporting to come 
from deceased persons, at least in one type of medium, 
namely the " possession " type. First the communi- 
cator is in a dream-like or somnambulic state, and 
communicating his thoughts to the trance-personality 
or " control." Then there is the " control," whether 
spirit or subconscious state, representing also a trance 
condition on any theory and receiving the supernor- 
mal information and transmitting it through the men- 
tal conditions of the medium. Then there is the 
trance condition of the medium involving the suspen- 
sion of the normal mental functions with all the dis- 
turbances usually affecting such a condition. Some- 
times also the communicator purports also to have 
another intermediary through whom the messages are 
sent to the " control " and sub j ecting them to still 
further modification. This was the case quite fre- 
quently in some of my experiments when one of the 
communicators had George Pelham to act as this in- 
termediary between himself and the " control." It 
matters not what theory we hold of the phenomena 
this is the psychological form which they took, and it 
is this which I am emphasizing rather than the spir- 
itistic hypothesis. 

In addition to these general conditions there are 
various degrees and stages of them, along with inter- 
cosmic conditions affecting the transmission of mes- 
sages from spirit to medium or personality to person- 

215 



PSYCHICAL EESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

ality. For instance, in the possession type of medium 
the trance is a deep one and the communicator seems 
to be affected very distinctly with some form of fluctu- 
ating amnesia or defective memory, and the difficulty 
is to control one's mental processes sufficiently to com- 
municate at all. On the other hand, there is the sub- 
liminal type of medium which represents a less deep 
condition of trance, if, indeed there is any of this at 
all. In such cases the mind of the medium is less in 
rapport with a transcendental world than the posses- 
sion type and so naturally modifies the communica- 
tions by all sorts of perceptive and interpreting pro- 
cesses. Apparently the communicator in such cases 
is clearer and less affected by the conditions of commu- 
nicating. But what he gains by this situation is lost 
by the amnesia when he comes to communicate through 
the possession type. When we add to these circum- 
stances the fact that all sorts of cerebral complications 
in the transmission are involved and may avail to 
disturb the integrity of the communications we may 
well wonder how any form of communication whatever 
is possible. The confusion might well be much worse 
than it is. 

Then again the mode of communication is not what 
it commonly seems. In the possession type it is 
usually automatic writing that serves as the process 
of transmission, in so far as we know it on this side. 
What it is on the other is not apparent on the sur- 
face, but seems, after a study of a large record, to 
involve something like telepathy between the spirit 
and the medium. For instance, communicators do not 
always refer to it as speaking, but often as thinking. 

216 



CONCLUSION OF EXPERIMENTS ; THEORIES 

The distinction is often implied in the phrase " this 
way of speaking," and various hints and statements 
indicate that the process of communication between 
the living has no clear analogies with that necessarily 
assumed in these phenomena. Whatever they are, 
they indicate on their surface something different 
from the familiar, and various circumstances suggest 
the existence of analogies with telepathic agencies and 
the presence of a dream-like mental state in the real 
or alleged communicator. On the other hand, if the 
subliminal type of medium is studied we find more 
definite evidence of an interesting and unusual condi- 
tion affecting the messages. If the communications 
take the form of descriptive speech by the medium it 
is noticeable that they seem to be describing what they 
see, and odd enough are the implications, very often, 
of these descriptions. The medium seems to be look- 
ing at objects and describing them as in real life. 
It is precisely this simulation of the material world 
and the real or apparent reproduction of " spirit 
clothes " and various material characteristics that we 
should naturally suppose were cast off by death that 
gives so much offense to the man of intelligence and 
common sense, especially if he has any sense of humor. 
But it is not at all necessary to take these descrip- 
tions as they appear. They may be the result of tele- 
pathic messages from the living or dead converted into 
phantasms or hallucinations by the subliminal activ- 
ities of the medium through whom they come. This 
view does not require us to suppose more than a 
thought world beyond the grave converted into appar- 
ent reality by the process necessary to establish a con- 

217 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

nection between the material and the spiritual world. 
In the dream, somnambulic, or hypnotic life of all 
persons the subconscious processes reproduce ideas or 
mental states in the form of hallucinations. They are, 
of course, not of that persistent type that indicates 
a morbid condition, but they are just as apparently 
representative of reality as normal sense perceptions. 
Now, if ideas from outside minds can be transmitted 
to the living, whether in trance or other unusual con- 
dition, as the process is not one of sense perception, 
but some supernormal action, it would be most nat- 
ural to look in subliminal mental action for the agency 
through which the extraneous thought is transmitted 
or expressed, and as subliminal action is so closely 
associated with hallucinatory functions foreign 
thoughts might appear as realities just as hallucina- 
tions do, and yet not represent those realities any 
more than do hallucinations. Suppose, then, a dream- 
like state of the dead when trying to communicate 
and a subconscious state of the medium through which 
the thought must be transmitted, and we might well 
expect all the appearance of realities, as they are de- 
scribed in mediumistic phenomena. The incidents of 
one's past life may be simply thought on the " other 
side " and as their telepathic impression on the sub- 
liminal mind of the medium results in a phantasm, an 
apparent reality to the medium, we ought to expect 
descriptions reproducing the features of a material 
world, without their characterizing such as a fact. 

Let me take as an example the message which I re- 
ceived through Mrs. Smith (Cf. p. 137). " Another 
person is here from the family circle ; a little boy four 

218 



CONCLUSION OF EXPERIMENTS; THEORIES 

or five years old. He is grown up. He wears a 
little blouse and little pants like knickerbockers." 
Superficially such a communication, which exactly de- 
scribes my brother and his clothes when he died forty 
years ago, represents an apparently material world of 
an absurd sort. The circumstances enable me to treat 
the incident here as not wholly due to chance. But if 
I am expected to believe that ghosts have clothes I 
should have great difficulty in accepting and defend- 
ing such a belief. But suppose that the communica- 
tor was simply thinking and that the medium was 
getting the message telepathically, — whether from 
the living or the dead matters not for our purposes, — 
and that the subconscious mind simply converted the 
transmitted ideas into hallucinatory phantasms, we 
could easily understand in this message a reference to 
the boy at the time he died, a recognition of maturity 
now — and this seems to be a characteristic of all such 
phenomena — and a phantasm of his dress reproduced 
from the thoughts of the communicator. In that view 
of the matter there would be no difficulty in giving 
a rational interpretation of the facts, and one that 
most easily consists with the spiritistic theory. 

If, then, we suppose that the communicator is in a 
dream-like state ; that the trance personality is also in 
more or less the same condition, and that the medium 
is also in a morbid condition of some kind, if that term 
is not too strong to express it, we can well under- 
stand how trivial and confused messages would be the 
result of communication from an ethereal world, and 
much more would the result be affected, if telepathy 
be the process of communication, a process that is 

219 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

extremely rare and difficult between the living. All of 
the influences together which I have mentioned would 
explain easily enough the perplexities of those who 
cannot make up their minds on such phenomena as we 
have been discussing, and ought to show that the ap- 
parent inconsistencies in the various hypotheses are in 
reality not such, but are caused by the confusion inci- 
dent to the operation of the several factors involved 
in the process of communication. 

In the present chapter it has been necessary to 
speak and think more positively regarding the spirit- 
istic theory than in the previous ones. In them I was 
primarily interested in giving the facts, and I should 
have continued that policy in the present article, if 
the triviality and confusion could have been explained 
in any rational way without trying the application of 
the spiritistic explanation. I have, therefore, 
imagined the spiritistic point of view as entitled to a 
test in its application to the very facts which give 
rise to the sceptics' most trusted objections. I do not 
put it forward as anything more than a working 
hypothesis, and shall unhesitatingly abandon it if a 
better and simpler hypothesis can be obtained and 
supported by evidence. I should, of course, not 
abandon it to the ipse dixit of any one who can talk 
glibly about what " might be." I want to know 
whether there is any evidence that a particular " might 
be " is in reality a fact. As this is a scientific prob- 
lem every hypothesis must have its evidence, and those 
that are supported by respectability and scepticism 
are quite as much under obligation to produce evi- 
dence as any spiritistic interpretation. All that I 

220 



CONCLUSION OF EXPERIMENTS; THEORIES 

should ask is that any theory advanced must produce 
sufficient evidence in its support to render it more 
probable than another, and I should not listen to a 
priori possibilities in this or any other matter pre- 
tending to be a scientific problem. The question here 
concerns the best hypothesis in the light of the facts, 
and if any better than the spiritistic can be evi- 
dentially sustained I shall be the first to accept it. I 
am interested only in discovering a clue to the per- 
plexities which all admit cannot be explained by the 
ordinary theories. 



221 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE SMEAD CASE 

This case, which will be of interest to psychical re- 
searchers, came under my notice in the following man- 
ner. During the holidays in December, 1901, I re- 
ceived a letter from a stranger, who turned out to be 
a clergyman, saying that he had been experimenting 
with his wife, who seemed to exhibit mediumistic pow- 
ers, and asking me to investigate the authenticity of 
certain statements bearing upon the personal identity 
of one of the " communicators." He also made the 
passing remark that he had a collection of " commu- 
nications " purporting to come from the planet Mars. 
I at once seized the opportunity to investigate the 
case and soon received the Martian matter for exami- 
nation. I found that the experiments had extended 
over several years and that a tolerably complete record 
had been kept. I at once became sufficiently inter- 
ested in the matter to arrange the materials for study 
and publication. The following is a summary of the 
results obtained, including personal experiments of 
my own. In this account the gentleman and his wife 
will, for the purpose of concealing their identity, be 
known as Mr. and Mrs. Smead. 

Of course, in spite of the fact that Mr. Smead 
was a clergyman, I had to be on the alert for fraud 
and deception, as I had no previousi acquaintance with 
him or any of his connections. But I soon found it 

222 



THE SMEAD CASE 

unnecessary to seriously entertain suspicions, as 
further acquaintance and investigation entirely re- 
lieved me of the duty of testing the evidence from this 
point of view, as was done in the Piper case. Mr. 
and Mrs. Smead were both honest and conscientious 
people, and it is especially pertinent to remark in this 
connection that it is the painstaking and conscientious 
character of their narratives and records that supplies 
the evidence which depreciates the spiritistic claims 
of many of the facts. They themselves furnished 
nearly all the evidence of secondary personality in 
their case, and showed an entire willingness to dis- 
credit any theory that did not appear to be war- 
ranted by the facts. This fortunate circumstance 
limited my task to the work of recording and 
analyzing the incidents. 

It seems that Mrs. Smead had been familiar with 
planchette writing from her childhood, and had occa- 
sionally practiced it. But nothing like systematic 
experiments had been made until 1895. In the mean- 
time a number of apparitions had occurred of which 
a contemporaneous record was made. But as they 
have no demonstrably veridical character no further 
mention of them need be made here. They simply 
exemplify a mental type of which we have more inter- 
esting examples. But when systematic experimenting 
began, as stated, in 1895, the phenomena assumed a 
more suggestive character. In so far as the " com- 
municators " were concerned, their names gave the 
appearance of a veridical character to their state- 
ments. They were three deceased children of Mr. and 
Mrs. Smead and a deceased brother of Mr. Smead. 

223 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

As far as their identity is concerned they represent 
personalities more plausibly spiritistic than those in 
M. Flournoy's case, which this one resembles in many 
of its features. I shall recur to this later. 



THE MARTIAN ROMANCE. 

During the early part of the year above mentioned 
the alleged communicators referred several times to 
two or three of the planets. But in August of that 
year, a propos of a question addressed to a deceased 
daughter as to where she was, the answer was " every- 
where," and then, after denying that she had seen 
heaven, she remarked that " some spirits are on the 
earth and others are on other worlds." A few weeks 
afterwards a brother of this communicator, pur- 
porting to write through the planchette, said that the 
sister who had made the above statement was away, 
and in answer to the question, " Where? " replied 
" Mars." In response to a further question he said 
that his sister had gone to Mars " with uncle Vester." 
[" Vester " was the abbreviated form by which Mr. 
Smead had called his brother Sylvester while living, 
the fact of course being known to Mrs. Smead.] At 
another sitting Mars was mentioned again, and also 
the intended visit there with this uncle. In the same 
sitting another communicator, Maude (the sister 
of the previous communicator), referred spontane- 
ously to Jupiter, and drew a crude map of its surface, 
saying, in reply to a request to tell something about 
its people, " they are different from you." Later, 
amid much trivial matter, Jupiter was said to be the 

224 



THE SMEAD CASE 



" babies' heaven," whither they were taken after 
death because they were better than grown-up people. 
Even secondary personalities cannot stand the theol- 
ogy of Calvin and Edwards! There were also sev- 
eral statements made in connection with this reference 
to the infants' heaven that betrayed the influence of 
early teaching in the life of Mrs. Smead, and which 
indicated the material upon which the secondary per- 
sonality had drawn for its " communications." They 
were perhaps the memories of Sunday school teach- 
ing supplemented by a childish imagination of what 
the stars might be. 

It was, however, at the next experiment that the 
most interesting " communications " began regarding 
the planet Mars. The sitting started with the draw- 
ing of a map in considerable detail, giving the names 
of the zones which were represented on it. The " com- 
municator " was Maude, the deceased child of Mr. and 
Mrs. Smead. The names given for the several zones 
were " Zentin " (cold), " Zentinen " (very cold), 
" Dirnstze " (North Temperate Zone), " Dirnst- 
zerin " (South Temperate Zone), " Emerincenren " 
(Equator), and " Mimtenirimte " (Continent). 
After the map was drawn the following dialogue took 
place between the " communicator " and Mr. Smead. 

" At it we had a fine time. We could go all around 
there easy. The people are bigger and there are not 
so many as on this earth. The people there could talk 
with the people here if they knew their language, but 
they do not." 

(Do the people in Mars have flesh and blood as we 
do?) "Yes." (Do they look like us?) "Some." 

225 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

(Are there big cities there?) "No. The inhabit- 
ants are most like Indians." (American Indians?) 
"Yes." (Are they highly civilized?) "Yes, some 
are, in some things." (What things?) " In fixing 
the water." (How in that way?) "Making it so 
that it is easy to get around it." (How do they do 
that?) " They cut great canals from ocean to ocean 
and great bodies of water." 

At this point in the sitting the " communications " 
stopped, and it should be said that the canals and 
bodies of water like lakes were represented on the 
map as drawn at the beginning of the experiment. 
A curious fact, however, connected with the incidents, 
is that an article was published in a paper taken by 
the family and dated one day after the date of this 
sitting, and in it reference was made to Percival Low- 
ell's articles in the Atlantic Monthly for that year 
discussing the question of Martian inhabitants and 
canals. Whether Mrs. Smead had seen this article 
before the automatic writing by the planchette de- 
pends upon whether the paper was printed ahead of 
its nominal date, which I could not ascertain, or 
whether she had seen any of Lowell's articles in the 
Atlantic Monthly, both of which Mr. and Mrs. Smead 
deny and with some probabilities in their favor. 
One need hardly make a point of this, however, as the 
resources of imagination are equal to all that was 
written by the planchette, especially since the ques- 
tion of Martian inhabitants and canals is one of com- 
mon interest. 

The next recorded " communications " did not refer 
to Mars, but consisted of apparent messages from 

226 



THE SMEAD CASE 

the deceased children of Mr. and Mrs. Smead, in 
which there was an evident attempt to have some fun. 
Among the tricks played by the subliminal was the 
draft of a figure which was said to represent the Devil. 
The figure was of a serpentine character with the fea- 
tures of a dragon. It was to some extent the con- 
ventional devil of the theatrical stage. Two or three 
times during the Martian " communications " this sort 
of interruption occurred, involving matter that had no 
planetary character or connections. But when the 
Martian " messages " were resumed after this humor- 
ous diversion it was interesting to remark their abrupt- 
ness and completed development. It was not until five 
years later, however, that any further experiments 
were made or recorded, and it is this long interval 
that creates the interest in the resumption of Martian 
matter. 

The last sitting was in December, 1895. The next 
was in September, 1900. In this latter the " commu- 
nications " present a developed form and devotion to 
detail. The planchette began by drawing a figure 
which might very easily suggest a ship, and wrote the 
two words " Seretrevir " and " Cristririe." The 
former was explained to mean a sea vessel and the 
latter its name. It seems that the Martians have the 
good sense to follow terrestrial usage and to give 
names to their ships. But an interesting deviation 
from our habits was the statement that the ships were 
made of trees and that the inhabitants of Mars did 
not have sawmills as we do. 

In the next experiment a curious figure was drawn, 
unrecognizable in itself but which was explained to be 

227 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

a " dog house temple." In the corners of it were 
drawn two animals which were explained as being 
meant to represent dogs, and which were said to give 
the name to the temple. The characters were then 
drawn which described the temple by name, and these 
were then translated into English characters, " Ti 
femo wahrhibivie timeviol," meaning " the dog house 
temple." 

In the same sitting was given the name of a lake 
that had been drawn on the map. It was " Emer- 
via." Mr. Smead then asked the " communicator " 
to give the Martian for " The boy runs," and re- 
ceived the answer that people do not run on Mars, 
but only walk. What the climate may be that pre- 
vents any faster pace was not explained, or whether it 
was climate or not. But the sentence written in Mar- 
tian characters and translated into English was " Ti 
inin amarivim." The form of thought as explained 
was " the boy walking " and not " the boy walks," a 
curious deviation from the most natural speech, unless 
the subliminal is shrewd enough to introduce just 
sufficient variation into a capricious whim of this kind 
to give it plausibility.* 

A few days later the planchette drew a rough sketch 
of a man and then one of a woman, explaining at the 
same time what they represented and giving the Mar- 
tian words for the two. " Mare " was for " man," 
" Maren " for " men," " Kare " for " woman," and 

* The absence of iuch variations is a peculiarity of the 
Flournoy case; the fact that in it the Martian language fol- 
lowed exactly the order and grammar of French, made a 
strong point in the argument against regarding it as an 
independent language. — [Editor's Note.] 

228 



THE SMEAD CASE 

" Karen " for " women." After this description Mr. 
Smead asked the question, " What is peculiar about 
that picture of the man you drew? " and received the 
following answer with the continued dialogue: 

"The way they dress." (How?) "The men 
wear dresses and pants." (Short dresses?) "Yes. 




The women wear bag-like skirts and funny hats. 
Their hair is hanging down their shoulders. The 
■ men put theirs up and keep long hair under their hats. 
We went all around. The people are different in dif- 
ferent places." 

In the next experiment a strange figure was drawn 
and the word " Wereven " written out, which was said 
to mean " serpent." This was followed by the ground 
plan of a house in the shape of a double cross, or two 

229 



PSYCHICAL, RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

crosses with their arms touching, and with the outline 
of a mountain range in the background. The lower 
part or half of the double cross, however, was ex- 
plained to represent the reflection of the house in the 
water, thus indicating that it was built on the shore 
of some body of water. It was afterwards explained 
also that the Martian houses were usually built on the 
shore of a lake or body of water. In the present 
representation there were drawn circular loops in the 
wing sections of the house. They were said to repre- 
sent windows. The doors stood on the line dividing 
the shadow from the house. 

At the next two or three sittings the tendency was 
to give some account of the Martian language in 
the form of sentences written out in Martian char- 
acters, which were hieroglyphic, and explained in 
English terms. The sentences were " This man is a 
great man," the Martian order being " This man a 
great man is," and " The great man addressing his 

subjects." Unfortunately Mr. Smead did not pre- 
serve the Martian words for these as for later sen- 
tences. On October 3rd the planchette drew the pic- 
ture of a flower and wrote the sentence : " Flowers 
bloom there. Many of the great men plant them " ; 
the Martian being, " Moken irin trinen minin aru ti 
maren inine tine." On the same date a still longer 
sentence was written. It was : " Ti maren arivie 
warire ti marenensis aru ti Artez feu ti timeviol." 
The English of this is : (i The men went with the 

230 



THE SMEAD CASE 



subjects of the chief ruler to the temple." In the 
course of the same experiment the " communicator " 
stated a fact that might interest the student of poli- 
tics. It was that : " The people on Mars choose their 
rulers, so that the children of great men do not 
count," with the emphasis apparently on " people." 
Evidently the aristocrats in that planet do not possess 
the franchise! They may have power, but they can- 
not share the privilege of helping in their own elec- 
tion. 

On the next day one of the most remarkable and in- 
teresting of the whole series of drawings was made, 
especially as it was drawn by the planchette. It was 
preceded by the written statement : " You should 
see some of their embroideries. The colors are beau- 
tiful." Then the planchette drew a representation of 
an embroidered dress with flowers scattered over it in 
symmetrical order. After the dress was drawn in out- 
line the colored portions were described, and these 
were variations of pink, white, green, yellow, brown 
and lavender. The waist was pink and apparently 
draped with lavender lace. The upper portion of the 
skirt was white and contained embroidered flowers in 
it, the flowers having various colors. Next to this 
was a wide pink stripe, which was wider behind than in 
front. The lower portion of the skirt was lavender 
in color and ornamented with flowers at the margin 
of the pink stripe, and at the lower edges. It is ap- 

231 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

parently a portion of an overskirt. In connection 
with it the dress was described in the following sen- 
tence : " Mare arivie ceassin oonei kei ahrue ruinin 



/ ^ A g^A-fl-l^A, 




warire ti mare." This was interpreted in English 
to mean : " Man chief ruler's wife's dress when she 
goes riding with the man chief ruler." 

On the next day the figure of a wagon with some 
animal hitched to it was drawn and described as a 
" goat-cart." The Martian for it was said to be 
" Yeoar." Then on the following day a most re- 
markable and original drawing of a Martian clock 
was made. The whole and its parts were described in 
detail. The Martian name for it was " Triveniul." 
It consisted of two circular wooden boxes resting side 
by side and connected by openings, through which 
passed from one to the other the wire that formed the 



THE SMEAD CASE 

coil springs in each box. The spring begins in the 
center of one box and terminates in a coil which is 
wound around a circular wire to hold it in its place, 
runs through the opening between the boxes and, 
winding about another circular wire, terminates as the 
first begins, in the center of the other box. The 
spring is of brass, and the spiral Dart of it is made 




and fastened so that as it unwinds in one of the boxes 
it winds up the other in the second box. The clock is 
wound once a day, and as the running down of one 
of the spiral coils winds up the other the latter serves 
to run the clock during the night. Though it was 
described with much detail the mechanical working of 
it was not made clear, and hence we can only mention 
the ingenuity of the subconsciousness in constructing 
a plausible piece of machinery. 

It seems also that the Martians have overcome the 
difficulties of aerial navigation. They have an air- 
ship of very peculiar and ingenious construction. 

233 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

The description of it by the planchette after drawing 
it was as follows : 

" Made of wire cloth-like stuff — made to go in the 
air. It is an air-ship. It is a coil. You see it will 
run a long mile (while) when they have to stop and 
wind it, or it must be wound while it is in motion. 
This coil makes the wings go. Each one (wing) is 
connected with this coil and then when the power is 
turned on it makes them go like birds' wings. The 




power runs it all, only the propeller guides it. Let 
me tell you about the wings first. 

" They are filled with air so that they are light. 
Then the wire-like cloth covers them. There are fif- 
teen points or parts of the wings that are filled with 
air. These wings go up and down. The coils at 
the bottom are used to help the wings open. The 
power winds the coil. The power is electricity and 
the batteries are where the coils are. There are three 
big coils. One is for the wind sails, one is for the 
wings, and one is for the propeller. The coil is used 
with the sails because it is sometimes needed when the 

234 



The smead cas£ 

winds are strong. The propeller goes like a wing. 
The wind makes the ship go some." 

The sketch of the air-ship drawn by the planchette 
shows a curiously shaped mechanism that resembles 
roughly a flattened ballon suspended upon a flat boat 
with sails. All the parts of it were named and accu- 
rately described, including the means of entrance, 
which were round window-like holes on the sides. 

Two days later the planchette drew a mountain, or 
elevation, on which were placed the Martian symbols 
of two houses, and the place was described as an ob- 
servatory or " place where they look at you." There 
were also drawn across the mountain what may be de- 
scribed as tunnels dug through it, with a pipe-like 
appearance at one end. The Martian name for 
house, " wardhibivie," was written near the symbols 
for houses and explained to mean this. Then a com- 
plete Martian sentence was written describing the 
place, with numerals placed under the words to indi- 
cate the order of the Martian thought. In English 
it read : " The place in which man chief ruler looks 
on your earth from Mars." The Martian order indi- 
cated by the numbers was : " The man chief ruler's 
place in which looks on your earth from Mars." 
The Martian hieroglyphics for this, when put into 
English letters and words, were : " Ti rure neu in- 
few mare laries en fratuir triuen carmie." 

A curious coincidence between this drawing and one 
in Flournoy's case is to be noticed. Mile. Helene 
Smith also drew a Martian observatory with a tunnel 
in it, and it appears that Mrs. Smead was unaware 
of the fact, as, although Flournoy's book was in the 

235 



PSYCHICAL, RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

house, it had been withheld from her reading on pur- 
pose to avoid such coincidences, and unless we are to 
believe that Mrs. Smead had examined the book in an 
unconscious state we have no reason to suppose that 
she had seen any of Mile. Helene Smith's drawings. 

The subject was not resumed until a month later, 
when, on November 14th, the planchette wrote a Mar- 
tian sentence representing the statement that the peo- 
ple in that planet were eating a meal. The house 
to which the statement referred seems, according to the 
original record, not to have been drawn until ten days 
later, November 24th. But the sentence was: 
" Wardhibivie arri prri kau f riuiol taikin sirvuen." 
To a question as to what the Martians were eating, 
the answer was, in English, " bread, cake, something 
like water, fruit, and chicken." The Martian for 
these foods was : " Fraiu, kreki, trikuil, caruitz, 
fiuiniz." The drawing of the house represented 
merely the ground plan, and described the furniture 
in it, with the position of each piece, including 
couches, hassocks, a cushion, table, water vessel, clock, 
and doors. 

At the next experiment, which was on November 
15th, the planchette drew the representation of a Mar- 
tian chicken, and said that this fowl was not so large 
as the terrestrial chicken. There was apparently an 
associative connection of the incident with those of the 
previous day. Then on November 16th, with prob- 
ably a similar associative connection, a house was 
drawn and said to represent the palace of Artez, the 
chief ruler. The parts of the palace were described 
in great detail after drawing it. It consisted of two 

236 



THE SMEAD CASE 

divisions, one of white and the other of gray stone. 
That of gray stone was by far the larger, and showed 
a different style of architecture. It was characterized 
by a series of square towers connected together on the 
first story. Two of the towers, of which there were 
eight in all, were larger than the others. There were 
four stairways arranged between the towers, except 
between the second and third, and between the fourth 
and fifth. The doors were large and of rectangular 
shape, and some of the windows round and some 




square. The roof was made so as to serve as a 
promenade, and access to it was gained through doors 
in the towers. The white stone house was smaller 
than the gray one, and built in the same general style, 
except that the towers, if so they may be called, ter- 
minated in pyramids, and the windows were all round. 
The foreground consisted of lawns, flower-beds, and 
ponds or artificial lakes. The background was a 
series of lofty mountains, with the blue sky to set 
them off. In all the representation was a magnificent 
piece of work, and involved conceptions worthy of a 
fine artist. 

237 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

Eight days later the planchette drew the ground 
plan of this house or palace, as remarked above, and 
then the representation of a curtain used in it. The 
curtain is an interesting work of art in some respects. 
It was apparently embroidered, and was described in 
detail. The fringe at the bottom consisted of repre- 
sentations of people, and was of dark gray or brown 
color. Immediately above it, of a lighter color 
and mixed with yellow, was a sort of serpentine- 
shaped decoration, and above this a yellow stripe. On 
this was superposed a wide red stripe with four speci- 
mens of flowers, as if set in pots. The two middle 
flowers were single, and the two outside sets were of 
three branches each. Over this belt was a narrow 
strip of gray color, apparently representing the 
walks and gardens of a palace: for in the center of 
the curtain above this belt were the white stone di- 
visions of the palace described previously, with green 
swards in the background rising into mountains and 
sky further back. On the sides of this picture, as a 
margin, were rectangles of red and yellow, and at the 
top a heavy brown fringe like that at the bottom. 
The whole representation is both unique, in its way, 
and well conceived. 

Nearly a fortnight later another curtain was 
drawn. It was somewhat different in style from the 
first specimen. The fringe and margins were not of 
the same type, and were not described in detail. The 
central ornament was a representation of the Martian 
air-ship with a background of cloud and sky. Curi- 
ously enough the figure of the air-ship is quite identi- 
cal with that drawn much earlier, showing the same 

238 



THE SMEAD CASE 



239 



subliminal memory as is noticeable in the hieroglyphic 
symbols of speech and thought, which are correctly 
repeated when once the fabrications are made. The 





V V v y y v vv-* 




sails of the air-ship were white, the curtain generally 
of brown, but the embroidery of a light blue. 

At various intervals during the next ten days there 
were drawn a bridal veil which duplicates our speci- 
men of this article in all essential respects, a lady 
wearing this veil and a dress with a long train, and 
in connection with the latter the Martian sentence: 

239 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

" Mirwerel Wariema Marquein wardhibivie raa- 
manie." The order of this in English would have 
been, according to the numerals placed under the 
words : " Marquein Wariema wardhibivie Mirwerel 
mamanie." The English interpretation of this was 
said to be : " The house where the bride Marquein 
Wariema lives with her husband " ; or after the 
grammatical structure of the Martian, " Marquein 
Wariema's house live together husband." It was also 
explained that the Martian bride retains her name 
after marriage, which in this case was " Wariema," 
as " Marquein " was said to be that of her husband. 
There is no record of any drawing of a house on this 
occasion to explain the reference of the sentence. 

The next drawing represented a large house with 
two wings, so to speak. It resembles a large bar- 
racks and is plain in architecture. The windows are 
again round and very numerous. It was described as 
" the place where the men that get married work." 
Two days later a Martian sentence was written ex- 
plaining that " the men work in the fields before they 
marry." The Martian of this was : " Ti maren 
oreicein ein treviens veren quren mariqim." There 
were some indications that the men who had to live 
this life before marriage were of the aristocratic 
class and even princes of the Crown, a most delightful 
way of reducing this class to democratic respectabil- 
ity. It is on a par with the Martian limitation of 
the franchise! 

This was the last of the Martian " communica- 
tions." They were suddenly interrupted and termi- 
nated by the appearance at the next experiment of a 

240 



THE SMEAD CASE 



new personality who called himself Harrison Clarke 
and who shut out all other would-be " communica- 
tors." He apparently had no interest in inter- 
planetary matters and never even alluded to them. I 
shall return to him presently. It is only necessary 
now to indicate the interruption of the Martian mat- 
ter and then to ask the question what it signifies. 

The psychologist and psychical researcher will 
recognize at once what these phenomena mean. 
There is no evidence that they are what they purport 
to be. The only hypothesis that recommends itself 
under such conditions is that of secondary personal- 
ity. There are internal indications in the drawings 
of the planchette that suggest this theory, even if 
we had no other evidence of it. For instance, the 
mechanical impossibility of the air-ship, the evident 
confusion of a " propeller " with the helm, the ap- 
propriation of forces like electricity, which is the sub- 
ject of present terrestrial excitement in expectation 
of further discoveries, the general play of this un- 
conscious process reproducing phenomena too much 
like the terrestrial to escape suspicion, all these are 
facts which take the Martian " communications " en- 
tirely out of the category of spiritistic revelations, 
unless better evidence is forthcoming to show a tran- 
scendental significance. But the most interesting 
and important feature of the case remains after we 
have classified it. It is the psychological value of 
such cases for the study of alleged spiritism. We 
find in them evidence that we need not attribute fraud 
to the normal consciousness, and we discover automatic 
processes of mentation that may be equally acquitted 

241 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

of fraudulent intent, owing to the absence of self- 
consciousness, while we are also free from the obliga- 
tion to accept the phenomena at their assumed value. 
Their most extraordinary characteristic is the extent 
to which they imitate the organizing intelligence of 
a normal mind and the perfection of their impersona- 
tion of spirits, always betraying their limitations, 
however, just at the point where we have the right to 
expect veridical testimony to their claims. In this 
case these claims are more plausible than in Prof. 
Flournoy's. His " spirits " could do nothing to 
prove their identity, and assumed, what I believe is 
the prevailing form of spiritism in France, namely 
the doctrine of reincarnation. But this feature, as 
in spiritism in this country, is absent from the present 
case, which is connected with personalities who might 
be expected to prove their identity, and we shall find 
in the sequel that some things are done to satisfy this 
expectation, at least in its superficial aspects. 

THE MYSTIFICATION OP HARRISON CLARKE. 

As I have already remarked, the " communica- 
tions " exhibiting the Martian characteristics were 
not the only ones which occurred during this period 
of planchette writing. I have simply grouped the 
Martian incidents together for collective examination 
and study. They were interspersed at various times 
with alleged " communications " of a very different 
sort, and partaking of superficial characteristics 
similar to those which have made the Piper case so 
interesting. Several relatives, and even entire stran- 

242 



THE SMEAD CASE 



gers whose identity could not be traced, purported 
to " communicate," and gave much more plausibility 
to the spiritistic explanation than did the Flournoy 
phenomena. 

One special illustration of this plausible character, 
was the personality of Harrison Clarke. He ap- 
peared, as already said, without previous announce- 
ment and interrupted the Martian " communica- 
tions," shutting out all other intruders. One of his 
special traits is his cleverness in tricks of writing. 
He shows about equal facility at inverted, mirror and 
normal writing. The inverted writing is backwards 
and upside down, so that it must be read by turning 
the sheet over from top to bottom. The mirror writ- 
ing can be read only in a mirror. But it was his 
autobiography that proved the most interesting of 
all his work. At first he relied on his tricks of writ- 
ing to prove his spiritistic claims, but when he was 
given to understand that these were not sufficient he 
condescended to meet our demands for more appro- 
priate data to prove his terrestrial identity, and the 
result was the following story, which was given at 
different times and not in the chronological order in 
which I here arrange his statements. 

He was born in a small town, now a part of 
Chicago. He did not name the suburb. At the age 
of two years he was taken to Albany, New York 
State, where he was brought up by an aunt. When 
he became old enough he went to New York City 
and worked there awhile, but removed to Baltimore, 
where he obtained work in a small store. There he 
fell in love with a young lady, whom he called " his 

243 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

girl," and became engaged to her. Thinking that 
if he was going to get married he ought to have a 
trade, he came back to New York and was employed 
as a type-setter in the office of the New York Herald. 
In the meantime " his girl " in Baltimore died, and 
the effect upon Harrison Clarke was a broken heart. 
He enlisted in the army and was " in the last regiment 
that left New York City for the war." This, he 
said, was in 1862. He was in the battle of Shiloh. 
He named the Generals, Grant as in chief command 
there and Sherman under him, with General Lew 
Wallace, saying that he himself was in Wallace's di- 
vision and that Wallace had taken General C. F. 
Smith's place because of the latter's sickness. Gen- 
eral Bragg was also mentioned as the Confederate 
commander. One night Harrison Clarke and his 
comrade were out, for reasons not definitely explained, 
wandering about through swampy ground, and ap- 
peared to be lost. Towards morning they were dis- 
covered by a rebel guard and shot. Clarke was shot 
through the lungs, but did not die immediately. In 
the meantime he was visited by the spirit of his lady 
love, who told him that he was coming with her. 
He demurred at first, but finally consented on receiv- 
ing the promise that he should be permitted to return 
some time and tell that he survived the ordeal of 
death. 

This is an interesting and circumstantial story. 
Some of the incidents it was not possible to investi- 
gate for verification or disproof, as they were not 
accompanied by the details necessary to secure a clue. 

244 



THE SMEAD CASE 

The incident of employment in the Herald office had 
its possibilities, but the authorities there refused to 
permit the necessary examination of their books to 
determine whether or not any such person ever worked 
there as claimed. The authorities in the War De- 
partment at Washington, D. C, were more kind and 
accommodating. In response to enquiries on the 
matter they reported to me that there were no New 
York Regiments in the battle of Shiloh. This battle 
occurred in June, 1862. There was a Harrison 
Clarke in the 125th New York Regiment, but he was 
still living at the time of these experiments and had 
never been in the battle named. There was also a 
Harrison Clarke in one of the Illinois regiments in 
the battle of Shiloh, but he was mustered out at the 
close of the war and did not die until 1895. There 
was a Harrison Clarke killed in the battle of Fair 
Oaks in April, 1862. This place was situated in a 
swampy region, but the incidents narrated do not fit 
such a person. My discovery in Washington, how- 
ever, put an end to the spiritistic claims of Harrison 
Clarke. The mention of the Generals in the battle 
of Shiloh was correct, but it is possible that Mrs. 
Smead has read somewhere an account of that battle 
and does not remember the facts in her normal state. 
It is also true that Harrison Clarke did not spon- 
taneously say that he enlisted in a New York Regi- 
ment, though he seemed to assent to this when it was 
suggested. His spontaneous statement was that his 
regiment was the last to leave the city before that 
battle. But the fact that no trace can be found of 

245 



PSYCHICAL. RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

any Harrison Clarke having been killed in that battle 
indicates quite clearly what disposal had to be made 
of his claims. 

As soon as I had ascertained that no New York 
regiments had been in the battle of Shiloh I resolved 
to confront this personality with the facts. I sent 
them to Mr. Smead, and at the first opportunity he 
presented them to Harrison Clarke for explanation. 
When this was done Harrison Clarke showed the 
natural embarrassment which the contradiction was 
bound to produce, but began a battle of intellectual 
sparring and defiance which perhaps has hardly its 
equal in the annals of secondary personality. Clarke 
admitted the embarrassing nature of the situation, 
but at the suggestion of desertion he seized the chance 
to say that he had deserted the New York regiment 
and had re-enlisted under another name in a regiment 
that enabled him to be present in the battle of Shiloh. 
But he absolutely refused to give the name under 
which he had re-enlisted! He saw a way to escape 
being trapped again, and stubbornly refused to sup- 
ply any more data for determining his personal iden- 
tity. As a consequence his presence was discouraged, 
and he soon disappeared in a fit of anger and did 
not reappear again for some time, when he seemed 
somewhat chastened and subdued, though he would 
not do anything more to establish his identity. 

I need not tell a psychical researcher why this per- 
sonality cannot be treated as spiritistic. The inter- 
est to the psychological student lies in its simulation 
of the real in its circumstantial story. The superior- 
ity of the personality in this respect to Flournoy's 

246 



THE SMEAD CASE 

Marie Antoinette, Leopold, and the Martian Reincar- 
nation is perfectly manifest, as the incidents have all 
the internal probabilities that the most inveterate 
spiritist might desire. The personality is perfectly 
natural and satisfies all the criteria for a spirit, except 
the truthfulness of the narrative. In this it exhibits a 
most interesting illustration of intelligence, and 
makes a valuable case of secondary personality for 
the student of spiritistic problems in either their 
spurious or their genuine manifestations. 

There were interesting phenomena, besides those 
that I have mentioned, which illustrate a remarkable 
secondary personality in this character. For in- 
stance, when asked to write the name of Philadelphia 
in mirror writing with every other letter omitted, 
this was done almost to perfection, with a dash and 
promptness that would take one off his feet, so to 
speak, with surprise. Again, to test the question of 
the supernormal I once placed my arm in a hanging 
position so that my body would completely conceal it 
from Mrs. Smead's field of vision while she was in a 
deep trance with her eyes closed, and moving my 
hand backward and forward on the wrist as a hinge, 
so as not to move the arm or cause any noise with 
the coat sleeve which might affect any supposed hyper- 
sesthesic condition of Mrs. Smead, I asked this per- 
sonality what I was doing, and received the answer 
that I was moving my hand. On my recognition 
of the answer's correctness Harrison Clarke asked 
me triumphantly whether I did not believe in him 
now. I flattered him on his success, but pressed him 
with the necessity of proving his identity if he were 

247 



PSYCHICAL. RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

to satisfy me. Similar feats were performed in one 
or two other instances, but the psychologist would 
want more experiments of this kind and would think 
of something else than spirits in all such cases. 

As an illustration of how much secondary person- 
ality had to do with the claims and character of Har- 
rison Clarke I may refer to a most interesting cir- 
cumstance. After I had reported to Mr. Smead, and 
he to Harrison Clarke, the fact that the person of 
that name in the 125th New York Regiment was still 
living, this personality had the audacity to cause a 
vision to appear to Mrs. Smead, in which he himself 
was represented as showing her his regiment march- 
ing before her, and when the ninth line was reached 
in which he had said originally that he had marched, 
he pointed out a vacancy in the line to indicate where 
he had been, and that he had really been killed. This 
was, of course, the subliminal utilizing my own in- 
formation and confusing it. 

Another incident which presents a remarkable in- 
stance of auto-suggestion is the following, which oc- 
curred in one of Mr. Smead's experiments. Mr. 
Smead had asked what became of Mrs. Smead's soul 
when he, Harrison Clarke, was writing, and the reply 
was that she was asleep. On a further question to 
know if she was aware of what was going on, Harri- 
son Clarke said: " Ask her what she just saw," and 
when Mr. Smead asked his wife to tell him what she 
saw, she being still in the trance, Harrison Clarke 
replied : " Yes, when she wakes." After she awoke, 
which was almost immediately, she narrated a most 
interesting vision. She had seen a lady dressed in 

248 



THE SMEAD CASE 

olden style, and had thought it was Harrison Clarke's 
lady-love. There were several other visions with 
much interest in them, but it would take too much 
time to go into their details. All of them suggest 
and some of them prove the influence of secondary 
personality, and so aid in this explanation of Harri- 
son Clarke in spite of his greater plausibility than 
any of the personalities in Flournoy's case. 

THE MEDITJMSHIP OP MRS. SMEAD IN CONNECTION 
WITH THAT OF MRS. PIPER. 

But the matter does not end here. Incidents with 
still greater interest than those of Harrison Clarke 
are yet to come. I had obtained some of the Clarke 
incidents at sittings which I held in the home of Mr. 
and Mrs. Smead, and the case interested me suffi- 
ciently to cause me to arrange for a series of experi- 
ments in my own house in New York, as I was so 
situated that I could not leave the city. My plan 
was to try an experiment which Dr. Hodgson had for 
many years wished to try in the Piper case, if we 
could find another medium of promise to make the 
trial. This was to establish communication between 
Mrs. Piper and another medium so that we could ex- 
change messages at the same time. I made arrange- 
ments with Dr. Hodgson to try this experiment 
simultaneously with his sittings near Boston. In 
pursuance of this I brought Mrs. Smead to New 
York. On the appointed day and hour Mrs. Smead 
went into trance in New York and at the same time 
Dr. Hodgson had his sitting at Arlington Heights, 

249 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

near Boston. This was on March 12th. Somewhere 
about 11 :30 or 12 o'clock Dr. Hodgson told " Rec- 
tor," the " control " in the Piper case at the time, 
what I was doing in New York and what I wanted 
of him, namely, that he should investigate my case 
and see if he could communicate through that me- 
dium. Rector went on to finish his " communica- 
tions " through Mrs. Piper and after he had closed 
them with his usual form of statement, as if recollect- 
ing an important matter, the hand of Mrs. Piper 
wrote in good strong script, " Remember 
Hyslop." 

I omit between these two words the pass sentence 
that my father, acting as supposed communicator, 
had spontaneously given me on February 7th, 1900, 
at a sitting with Mrs. Piper and intended as a means 
of identification in future experiments with mediums 
other than Mrs. Piper. On the next day, March 13th, 
Rector took up a part of the sitting with Mrs. Piper 
at which Dr. Hodgson was present and in the " com- 
munications " discussed the case with Mrs. Smead. I 
report here the record as made at Arlington Heights, 
with the omission of reference to other cases not af- 
fecting mine, and of certain confusions in the " com- 
munications." Rector's statements were as follows: 

" Friends, in looking over the light with friend 
Hyslop there is little indeed to be said by us concern- 
ing it, or the antecedents therein exercised by the so- 
called light. It is really not worth recording, i.e., 
the genuineness of it." (R. H., You mean that there 
is a little real light, but not much ? ) " Yes, have we 
not so expressed it, in different words, perhaps ? " 

250 



THE SMEAD CASE 

(Is there enough for you to send any message there?) 
" No there is not." (Then is it worth our spending 
any more time about it here now?) [Mrs. Piper's 
hand listens, as it were, to the invisible.] (Have you 
any advice to give ? ) " Yes, and hast thou any arti- 
cle of his, Hyslop's, friend? " (No.) 

" We will for absolute surety send Prudens there at 
once and see precisely what the conditions are while 
the meeting is going on. We ask thee to ask him to 
be wary. The so-called light as seen by us is not 
a light given from our world at all, but the conditions 
are hypocritic (deceptive) and fanciful." 

(Then do you see whether the deception is on the 
part of the supraliminal consciousness, or is it due to 
the subliminal or understratum?) " Subliminal and 
not supraliminal. And therefore the subject is not 
consciously deceiving, but a few suggestions from the 
experimenter would soon determine in his mind the 
conditions as herein described. It would be infinitely 
wiser to suggest to the subject that the statements, 
visions, etc., were due to the hidden consciousness, and 
were being produced through the condition known as 
thought transference." 

( She has, I understand from you, a capacity for re- 
ceiving impressions to some extent telepathically from 
incarnate persons.) 

" Yes, and not discarnate. This explains abso- 
lutely the conditions there represented." [Hand then 
thumps the table once, then points to invisible.] 

Prudens. " The statements by the spirit register- 
ing are correct." (You mean by Rector?) "Yes, 
I do. Prudens." 

" We can point out numerous cases similar." (It 
is quite frequent do you find ? ) " Yes, in our long 
search for other lights than the one through which we 

251 



PSYCHICAL EESEAKCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

now operate we find this unfortunately to be the case." 
(Do you in such cases see a light?) "Not in all, 
but with an exceptional few." (Do you mean a light 
that cannot be used by discarnate spirits?) "No, 
but a light which if rightly developed and understood 
could be used at times by discarnate spirits." 

Some further statements were made by the trance 
personality about other cases, comparing them with 
my own, and they ended with the sentence : " There 
is in the person with Hyslop a light, but not a decep- 
tive one." 

My sittings with Mrs. Smead in New York on 
both of these dates, March 12th and 13th, were entire 
failures. Not a line or word was obtained that would 
even suggest the supernormal evidentially, and even 
secondary personality was not evident except in the 
fact of automatic writing. On the second of these 
days I received the name of my wife in the automatic 
writing. She had died a few months previously and 
Mrs. Smead was told the fact after the sitting of the 
previous day, and the circumstances were such that 
they do not encourage the belief that there was any- 
thing significant in the incident. But it is extremely 
interesting to find that my own results coincided with 
the judgment of Rector and Prudens at the sittings 
with Mrs. Piper. The Martian " communications " 
and the incidents of Harrison Clarke were so palpably 
complicated with secondary personality, or subliminal 
mental action on the part of Mrs. Smead, that the 
reader who recognizes this fact must be struck with 
the general correctness of Rector's diagnosis. Most 
striking was his reference to " visions," since the 

252 



THE SMEAD CASE 



reader has been informed that subjective apparitions 
and visions are a very frequent phenomenon in the 
experience of Mrs. Smead, and there are many more 
of them than I have mentioned. 



INTRODUCTION OP OTHER COMMUNICATORS; SOME IN- 
DICATIONS OF SPIRITISTIC MESSAGES. 

At the next few sittings some incidents developed 
that suggest the correctness of Rector's admission of 
supernormal capacity to the extent of thought trans- 
ference, as necessary to explain at least one circum- 
stance. The sitting on the 14th showed nothing of 
importance. On the 15th, early in the experiment, I 
got my father's name, but as this was probably known 
to Mrs. Smead from my article in Harper's Maga- 
zine I could attach no significance to it, and hence 
I asked that the pass sentence be given, to which I 
have referred above. My request was followed by 
scrawls at first and then in a few minutes the first 
word of that sentence and probably the second were 
written, the first quite clearly. This was in a lan- 
guage which Mrs. Smead does not know and never 
has known. The sentence was known to but two 
persons, Dr. Hodgson (since deceased) and myself, 
and is secured under lock and key against discovery. 
At this and the next sitting I also received several 
names suggestive of a spiritistic theory, but as the 
circumstances made it possible that Mrs. Smead might 
have accidently heard them I can attach no import- 
ance to the facts, though the probabilities are against 
her knowledge of them. The last sitting was an en- 

253 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

tire failure owing to an attack of influenza which 
seized Mrs. Smead. On the whole I was not im- 
pressed with the sittings, in spite of the significance 
attaching to the delivery of a part of the pass sen- 
tence. The evidence for the supernormal of any kind 
was too small to deserve much consideration, and it 
is only the remarkably correct diagnosis of the trance 
personalities in the Piper experiments that demands 
attention. 

There are incidents, however, that lend much more 
support to the spiritistic theory and might confirm 
the possibility, recognized by Rector, of communica- 
tions from the discarnate. They were sporadic oc- 
currences during the whole period of these manifesta- 
tions. The first important one occurred as far back 
as 1896. Besides a large number which are amen- 
able to the hypothesis of secondary personality the 
following seem to be exempt from suspicion of this 
kind. 

While Mr. Smead had charge of a small pastorate 
in another town than his present residence he and 
Mrs. Smead had an intimate friend and parishioner 
in the person of a young lady of the name of Maude 
L. Janes. Mr. Smead had moved in the meantime 
and an occasional letter between Mrs. Smead and this 
Miss Janes had passed for a year after the removal 
in 1894, and then according to the testimony of Mr. 
and Mrs. Smead, all correspondence, ceased. In Au- 
gust, 1896, fully a year after the cessation of corre- 
spondence, at a sitting of which a record was made 
at the time, the planchette wrote that this Miss Maude 
L. Janes had died of pneumonia, that she had died 

254 



THE SMEAD CASE 



on March 25th, 1896, and that her attending physi- 
cian was a Dr. St. John. This purported to come 
direct from Maude L. Janes herself. Mr. Smead 
wrote to the mother of the lady to know if Maude was 
living or not, and learned in reply that she had died 
of pneumonia on April 25th, 1896, and that her 
physician was Dr. St. John. She had also mentioned 
the place of her burial, but the statement proved on 
enquiry to be incorrect. 

The circumstances of the case, and the measures 
taken by Mr. and Mrs. Smead to ascertain whether 
the " communications " were true or not, seem to in- 
dicate that the knowledge thus gained through the 
instrumentality of the planchette was in some way 
supernormal. It is interesting to observe in this con- 
nection that Miss Janes, in a conversation with Mrs. 
Smead some years before, had remarked, " I'll come 
to you when I die." She did not purport to com- 
municate again until February, 1901, when a very 
pretty series of " messages " was delivered, one of 
them about a certain little boy with whom she had 
gone to school, giving his name, and saying that he 
had gone to New Haven. This was unknown to Mrf 
and Mrs. Smead and proved on enquiry to be correct. 
The other incidents at this sitting, all well calcu- 
lated to prove personal identity, were known to Mr. 
and Mrs. Smead. These were the death of several 
persons, among them that of Maude Janes' mother, 
and a reference to a singular postal card which this 
Maude Janes had written to Mrs. Smead, explaining 
correctly why it had been written " backwards." 
Later she named her teacher previous to the time of 

0KK 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

Mr. Smead's pastorate in the place, whom Mr. and 
Mrs. Smead had never known and whose name they 
did not know. She also mentioned a visit to South 
Hadley, Mass., about which Mr. and Mrs. Smead 
knew nothing and which, on enquiry, proved to have 
been correct. At a later sitting she attempted to 
give a geometrical demonstration of bisecting an 
angle and some other problems, and though she was 
not successful in making it clear, the figures were 
rightly drawn. Now, according to their testimony, 
Mr. and Mrs. Smead never knew whether Maude 
Janes had studied geometry or not. Mrs. Smead 
knew that she had studied algebra, which was dur- 
ing the last year of Mr. Smead's pastorate in the 
place, and the study of geometry followed a year 
later after Mr. Smead's removal. In addition Mrs. 
Smead never studied geometry and never knew any- 
thing about the science, not enough to draw the fig- 
ure of bisecting an angle. What might have inci- 
dentally come across her knowledge no one knows, 
but the testimony in this case is against secondary 
personality. 

On another occasion the " communications " pur- 
ported to come from a Mr. George Morse. He 
stated, among other incidents given with some con- 
fusion, that he had died of pneumonia, that his wife 
was still living, and that he himself had been a 
master mason. Mrs. Smead had known the man 
many years before, but had not seen or heard of him 
for seventeen years; never knew that he had been 
a master mason, as this was only during the last 
two years of his life, and did not know that his wife 

256 



THE SMEAD CASE 

was living. The reference to pneumonia was wrong, 
as he died of paralysis. All of these facts had to 
be verified by making a special trip to Boston to 
make the inquiries. Mrs. Smead had not for many 
years been in the part of Boston in which Mr. Morse 
lived, except to ride through it on the street cars 
once or twice, and never had any communications 
with the family since she left the place seventeen 
years before. 

Another " communicator " mentioned, about the 
same time, along with a number of incidents known 
to both Mr. and Mrs. Smead, one fact known only 
to Mr. Smead. When asked to tell something to 
prove his identity in addition to giving his name the 
planchette wrote the following: 

" I, Burleigh Hoyt, told this brother, when I was 
walking with him in the driveway at the back of his 
house near the pump, that I could and did have the 
power or gift from God which enabled me to tell 
whether the place which was selected was a place in 
which the water supply was good and would be last- 
ing, and I, Burleigh Hoyt, write this to prove to 
anyone who may doubt my good pastor's word that 
it is and was B. B. Hoyt." A reference to an insane 
son and the troubles of his wife on that account were 
characteristic but not evidential. 

Another instance is especially interesting for its 
mixture of truth and error, in view of the ignorance 
of Mr. and Mrs. Smead regarding the facts, and also 
because its confusion resembles some cases in the 
Piper phenomena. A " communicator," whose name 
I could not decipher in the original automatic 

257 



PSYCHICAL BJESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

writing, indicated, nevertheless, enough to lead to 
the discovery of her identity. My attempt at de- 
ciphering the name, before I ascertained who it might 
be, ended in the letters " Celelee." But she finally 
gave her name as Mrs. Stearns, and in connection 
with it mentioned Lowell (Mass.) and then the name 
of Robert Russell and said that she was his wife's 
sister. She then said that she and her father wanted 
Mr. Smead to thank this sister, but did not succeed in 
telling why she wanted it done. 

Now Mr. and Mrs. Smead had known this Robert 
Russell and his wife in connection with some religious 
work four or five years previously, and learned after 
this sitting, through them, that the deceased sister 
was a Mrs. Keliher (possibly the name intended by 
" Celelee "), whom they had never known. Her name 
was not Stearns, but inquiry showed that her husband 
worked in Stearns' Manufacturing Company in Law- 
rence, both this fact and his person being entirely 
unknown to Mr. and Mrs. Smead. The sister, Mrs. 
Robert Russell, had cared for the father during his 
last days in Lowell, Mass. It is interesting to re- 
mark also that Mrs. Keliher died in a delirious condi- 
tion, having forgotten her name and identity, accord- 
ing to the testimony in the case. The circumstance 
has its analogies in the Piper record. 

Mr. Smead's brother Sylvester, who was killed by 
a railway engine, and who purported to participate 
in the Martian " communications," made some inter- 
esting replies in response to questions. I had asked 
Mr. Smead to test him in an appropriate way, and 
this was done. He was first asked to give the name 

258 



THE SMEAD CASE 

of his lady-love, as Mr. Smead did not know cer- 
tainly who this was, and the reply was " Evelyn," 
which turned out correct, and was not known to Mrs. 
Smead so far as her recollection goes. Then he was 
asked to give the name of another lady who had 
worked in a certain foundry, and the planchette 
wrote, " Grace Cregg," Grace Craig being the cor- 
rect name, also unknown to Mrs. Smead. He was 
then asked to name the station agent at a certain 
place, and this was done in the confused forms, 
" Hwtt, Hwett, Hewitt." The correct name was 
" Hoit." This name was entirely unknown to Mrs. 
Smead. At this point Sylvester began to tease his 
brother about the " communications " being the re- 
sult of Mrs. Smead's secondary personality, Mr. 
Smead having told Harrison Clarke that he was no 
veritable spirit but a secondary personality. Then 
he was asked for another test, which was that he 
should name the man who had once chased the two 
brothers when they were playing tick-tack together 
as boys. He gave this correctly as Roberts, the 
name and incidents being unknown to Mrs. Smead, so 
far as she can recollect. As I had arranged that 
Mrs. Smead should come to New York for experi- 
mentation, as above indicated, Mr. Smead asked his 
brother Sylvester to accompany her thither. He 
promised to do so, and said : " You won't be afraid 
now, Billy, with me." Before Mr. Smead's marriage 
his brother used to tease him by exciting his jealousy, 
until Mr. Smead would fear that his brother might 
marry the present Mrs. Smead. After this episode 
Mr. Smead again asked him to give the name of 

259 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

his lady-love, and received the answer : " Evelyn 
Sargent." Mr. Smead did not know what her name 
was, but from a poem found in the pocket of his 
brother after the latter's death he suspected that it 
was " Evelyn," as the poem was dedicated to some- 
one of that name. When he asked the question of his 
brother he had in mind three persons whom he 
thought possible candidates. One of them was 
named Minnie Sargent. It was thus interesting to 
find the name Sargent added to that of Evelyn. 
Inquiry, however, showed that the correct name was 
" Evelyn Hamel." Mrs. Smead, of course, never 
knew any of the facts. The incident is amenable to 
the suspicion of being telepathic in part at least, if 
we admit the supernormal at all, though the fact that 
Mr. Smead generally had his own hand also on the 
planchette might suggest its origin in his own sec- 
ondary personality. 

There were some interesting incidents " communi- 
cated " by a Mr. Miller, who was also a relative of 
Mr. Smead, but it would extend this paper to an un- 
due length to repeat and explain them. I could also 
mention quite a number of others were it not for the 
same reason. There were several alleged " com- 
municators " whose identity could not be traced, 
though they gave their names. There was, however, 
too little collateral evidence to enable us to make any 
investigation as to identity. One, a Rev. Henry 
Smith, who said he had lived in Saco, Maine, and who 
gave a number of specific details, well calculated to 
establish his identity, was found to have been wholly 
wrong in regard to them. In fact, it was noticeable 

260 



THE SMEAD CASE 

all through the experiments that where the " com- 
municators " were unknown to Mrs. Smead at any 
time in her life, the " messages " were exceedingly 
meager and confused, so that even the simulation of 
spiritistic material was imperfect. 

Some later incidents have occurred which may be 
of interest. 'The experiments have been continued 
and the record kept as before. The same mixed fea- 
tures exhibit themselves in the case, leaving the stu- 
dent without conclusive evidence in favor of any one 
interpretation, but it is still a most instructive case on 
any theory whatsoever. 

In the summer of 1901 Mr. and Mrs. Smead lost 
a little son very suddenly, apparently from some sort 
of poisoning. About two weeks after his death he 
apparently returned as a " communicator " through 
his mother. Nearly all the incidents which were 
given to establish his identity were known to his 
mother, as would be a matter of course. But there 
were two that were not so known and which are worth 
mentioning. 

When Mrs. Smead came to New York for experi- 
ments with me Mr. Smead and the little boy kept 
house. During this time Mr. Smead and the little 
boy went to another city by train. This incident was 
mentioned in the " communications," and allusion 
made to his having gone on an " express " train on 
that trip, and also to his night-dress and to a pair of 
mittens worn then. Now there was no express train 
on the railroad by which the two went, but it seems 
that on the trip the little boy was very much pleased 

861 



PSYCHICAL, RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

by the ride and, alluding to his own toy cars at home, 
spoke of those by which he was traveling as an 
" express train." This fact was not known to his 
mother, but only the fact that he had made the trip. 
Something, of course, might have been said about it 
by the boy in the presence of the mother and then 
the incident forgotten by her. But she does not re- 
member it. 

In one of his " communications " this boy referred 
to a little trunk that his brother George had given 
him a short time before he died. He indicated that 
he had asked his brother for it and that his brother 
had gone across the room and got it for him. Mr. 
Smead cross-questioned the living brother without 
putting leading questions, and found that while he 
himself and Mrs. Smead were out of the room, the 
day before the boy died, this little brother had been 
asked to bring the box or trunk to the sick child and 
had done it precisely as described at the sitting. 

A feature of the automatic writing bearing on the 
identity of the boy is of some interest. It was very 
characteristic of the boy that he wrote in capitals 
while living. That is, it was a habit of his fre- 
quently to do so. In the earlier " communications " 
purporting to come from him most of the writing was 
in capitals. When he first appeared the writing was 
about evenly divided between the ordinary script and 
capitals, but it was noticeable that he was often ap- 
parently assisted by his deceased sister. But as he 
came to be able to act without help the use of capitals 
diminished, until they finally disappeared and the 
ordinary script returned in all his " communications." 

262 



THE SMEAD CASE 

Of course this habit was known to both Mr. and Mrs. 
Smead. 

There have been many other alleged communicators 
who have given interesting incidents in proof of iden- 
tity. But these incidents are either so well known 
to Mrs. Smead or so mixed up with what she certainly 
did know, and are so complicated that I cannot ven- 
ture in a short summary like this to detail them. 
They have a most striking bearing, however, on the 
theory of secondary personality, especially as in some 
of them there is exhibited something of the dramatic 
play of personality which is so impressive a feature 
of the Piper phenomena. 

THE APPARITION OF AUNT SARAH. 

I must, however, narrate one experience, and an 
experiment connected with it, which has some interest 
to the psychical researcher, even though we cannot 
consider it as proving anything. 

On the evening of September 27th, 1901, Mr. and 
Mrs. Smead had a sitting, and the names of George 
Lowrey and George Smead were given, and an ap- 
parent attempt was made to " communicate " some- 
thing. The George Lowrey mentioned was deceased, 
the fact being known to the Smeads. He was an 
uncle of Mrs. Smead. The possible and apparent 
significance of the name may be connected with the 
following experience, which followed closely upon the 
sitting to which I have just referred. The same 
night, September 27th, Mrs. Smead had a vision. I 
give her account of it. 

263 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

" I had been for a ride Friday afternoon and was 
very tired, so could not sleep very well during the first 
part of the night. About midnight I awoke with my 
right arm so painful that I could not move it from 
the wrist. I turned over to the left of the room and 
thought that it was very lonely without Cecil (the 
deceased son), and how much I would like to see him, 
if only for a few moments, when there was a loud rap 
in his room and another near me on the floor. I 
looked towards the spot where the rap came from, 
when I saw a vision of an elderly lady. This vision 
was different from any that I had seen before. It 
looked very ghostly. It had snowy white hair and 
wore a white gown. The hands and face were very 
white, so much so that I looked very steadily at it to 
be sure that I was not mistaken. I thought that, per- 
haps, the lady we had seen that afternoon had died. 
This was not true. This person that I saw was very 
old and I was so much surprised at the difference in 
her appearance from those that I have seen before 
that when morning came I at once told my husband 
what I had seen. He told me to write it out at once. 
I said that I did not wish to do so, because it was so 
ghostly that I did not like to think of it." 

Mr. Smead confirms the fact of having been told 
the narrative on the morning of the 28th, and the 
vision was soon afterwards written down as described. 
This was on September 30th. 

On the morning of September 30th they received 
a letter from a relative dated the same day, saying 
that an Aunt Sarah, aunt of Mrs. Smead, and living 
in Baltimore, some five hundred miles distant, had 
died. Further enquiry showed that she had died on 

264 



THE SMEAD CASE 

September 26th, the day before the sitting in which 
the name of George Lowrey, who was a nephew of 
this aunt, was mentioned. Enquiry also showed that 
Mrs. Smead had never seen this aunt. I obtained 
the written testimony of another person that this was 
the fact, not accepting as conclusive the testimony of 
Mrs. Smead. But as soon as I learned this fact I 
asked Mr. Smead in a private letter, which Mrs. 
Smead was not to see, and which he reports that she 
did not see, the letter having been destroyed imme- 
diately, according to my request, to obtain a photo- 
graph of this deceased aunt and put it with a num- 
ber of others as much like it as possible, and observe 
if Mrs. Smead spontaneously discovered the one rep- 
resenting this aunt. The following is the result of 
the experiment, which took some months to arrange: 

" I put the photo that I got from Baltimore in the 
midst of a lot of others, over fifty of them, and after 
an hour of so had elapsed I brought the whole lot 
downstairs, began to talk of some of her girl friends, 
told her I wanted to see if she could find me the pic- 
ture of Lottie Dudley that she knew was dead, and 
asked her to see if she knew who Annie Hedengran 
was in the lot of pictures and named over two or 
three others, so that she thought that some of those 
that I named were dead, or had died recently, and that 
my point was to see if she could find the pictures. I 
fooled her completely and threw her off her guard as 
to aunt Sarah. So she went along looking at the 
photos and talked of this one and that one of her girl 
friends. Some she was sure were living, others she 
knew were dead, and others she thought might pos- 
sibly be dead, thinking all the while that I was driving 

265 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

at that, to see if she would pick out the photo of this 
dead girl friend, when bj and by she came at once 
upon this photo of aunt Sarah. She was greatly 
shocked, looked at me, knew it at once and recognized 
the face, said the face she saw (in the vision) had no 
glasses, the hair was crimped as in the photo, but 
flatter on the forehead. She had a white dress when 
Mrs. Smead saw her (in the vision) and was not quite 
as fleshy as the photo would indicate. The recogni- 
tion was absolute. I then took another tack. I told 
her she was too sure, that it was all nonsense for her 
to be so positive, that I might have got a picture of 
some other woman and put it there to make her think 
it was the one she saw and kept back the real picture, 
if I had it, and that I was trying to fool her, etc., etc. 
It was all no use. She was sure and positive. The 
identification was complete. I had to give it up. So 
I then told her that it was the photo. She had never 
seen a photo of her before. This picture was the last 
one taken before her death." 

I can only give this for what it is worth. It is not 
complex enough in its incidents to prove anything by 
itself, but it has a coincidental interest which may be 
worthy of record along with other matter. 

There are some recent developments of interest in 
this case. They are, at least, a simulation of the 
Imperator phenomena in the Piper case. As no evi- 
dential incidents have occurred to show the presence 
and influence of this group of personalities the facts 
need not be further mentioned. 

Comments on this interesting case, I think, may be 
very brief. Enough has been given in my narrative 
to show that, on any theory whatsoever of such phe- 

266 



THE SMEAD CASE 

nomena, the present case is intermediate between that 
of M. Flournoy's Helene Smith and Mrs. Piper. In 
fact it may be called a case on the border-line be- 
tween secondary personality and spiritistic phenom- 
ena. Mrs. Piper's phenomena are in many respects 
unique. M. Flournoy's case is a most remark- 
able instance of secondary personalities masquerad- 
ing as spirits.* The case of Mrs. Smead began, as 
the record shows, in the most naive secondary person- 
ality and ended in the production of phenomena much 
like those of Mrs. Piper, showing a gradual devel- 
opment from the purely secondary consciousness to 
what might possibly be complicated with occasional 
spiritistic messages. The difficulty with a spiritistic 
theory in this case is (1) that there is obviously so 
much secondary personality in it as to create suspi- 
cion regarding the remainder, and (2) that the ap- 
parently supernormal incidents depend too much 
upon the memories of Mr. and Mrs. Smead, while the 
Piper case presents conditions in which it is incon- 
ceivable or impossible to suppose that she gets her 
information in any normal way. But if we can sup- 
pose that the Smead case contains a few spiritistic 
episodes (and there are some possibilities of this) we 
have an interesting illustration of the part which 
secondary personality may play in the development 
of mediumistic powers. 

* Since the original publication of this paper in the Annals 
of Psychical Science some very important experiments have 
been made with Mrs. Smead and the results show the existence 
of genuinely supernormal phenomena beyond any question 
whatever. Whatever hesitation the present paper may show 
is removed by these later experiments. 

267 



CHAPTER IX 

SOME FEATURES IN MEDIUMISTIC PHENOMENA 

Readers of the Journal of the American Society 
for Psychical Research may recall some discussion 
regarding the nature of the life after death. It may 
be useful to give a concrete example of the difficul- 
ties with which we have to contend in the solution of 
problems connected therewith, and hence I give the 
detailed record of a sitting with Mrs. Smead. I 
have published also a preliminary Report on the 
Smead case which gives evidence of the supernormal 
and shows its exemption from the most natural sus- 
picions entertained against mediumship. Suffice it 
to say here that Mrs. Smead is the wife of an ortho- 
dox clergyman and has never received any money for 
her work. Her identity has to be concealed under 
the name which I have given, and other experiments 
than the one I am quoting will have to be relied on 
to answer the doubts of the sceptic. I am using the 
present record with the assumption that his objec- 
tions have already been removed, so that I do not 
mean to discuss the genuineness of the phenomena in 
this connection. I wish to take this for granted, at 
least hypothetically, for the sake of an important 
illustration in the perplexities of non-evidential phe- 
nomena. 

Some years ago in the experiments which Mr. 
Smead was conducting under my directions, there 

268 



SOME FEATURES IN MEDITTMISTIC PHENOMENA 

were apparently some attempts on the part of the 
Rev. Stainton Moses, who died in 1892 in England, 
to communicate through Mrs. Smead. But the fail- 
ure seems to have been as conspicuous as in the case 
of Mrs. Piper. Occasionally, however, there are 
traces of his personality attempting to manifest itself, 
and the record below is one of them. Mr. Smead 
was not expecting this personality to appear at this 
experiment, but rather hoped for one who passes as 
the Cardinal. The manifestation of Stainton Moses 
was thus unexpected by both Mr. and Mrs. Smead. 
I give the record in full, confusions and mistakes ex- 
actly as they occurred. 

It must be remembered, however, that I am not 
quoting the record in illustration of what it actually 
purports to be, namely, spirit communications. Any 
reader who wishes to so interpret the matter may do 
so, but it is not assumed by me to be this in fact. I 
concede any interpretation that the sceptic may choose 
to make of it, except that of conscious fraud. The 
student of abnormal psychology will see nothing more 
in it than secondary personality, and in so far as 
conclusive evidence is concerned it cannot be claimed 
to be anything else. But I mean to quote it and to 
consider it as a psychological production which has 
to be examined without regard to the security of its 
claims to be what it superficially purports to be. 
Coming, as it does, in conjunction with matter that 
has the same claim to being supernormal as in the 
case of numerous similar cases, it becomes a part of 
the problem which is associated with the supernor- 
mal. For that reason we may examine its nature 

269 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

and claims in spite of the natural temptation to 
ascribe it the same source as the evidential matter. 
The primary interest is to study the problem which 
the psychic researcher has before him, when estimat- 
ing the claims of strictly non-evidential matter to a 
supernormal origin. All that is assured at the out- 
set is the fact that the record was automatically pro- 
duced and purports to have a spiritistic source. 
What its rights are to this claim will have to be ex- 
amined, but regardless of these it has considerable 
psychological interest in illustration of the large lit- 
erature presenting similar superficial credentials. 

The record is a recent one, being dated February 
6th, 1907. I place in parentheses what Mr. Smead 
said or asked during the experiment and as reported 
by him. In square brackets I place such comments 
and explantory notes as were necessary afterward to 
explain the meaning of the record at specific points. 
Asterisks mean that certain words or passages of the 
automatic writing are not legible. 

RECORD 

February 6th, 1907. 

Present Mr. and Mrs. Smead. 

(All ready.) 

That is right. We are here, coming here. 

(All right.) 

coming nearer, yes. it is I be not afraid. 

(Very good. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ 
be with thy spirit. ) 

[Mr. Smead thought he was addressing Cardinal 
L. but this was not accepted by the communicator.] 

270 



SOME FEATURES IN MEDIUMISTIC PHENOMENA 

Behold ye him. it is Him of whom and to whom 
thou speakest. 

(Is Jesus Christ present this morning?) 

I am with ye in thy endeavor to do the work of 
Him that chooses thee, th [' th ' evidently written to 
convert ' chooses ' into ' chooseth.'] 

(Who is writing? Is it my Lord and Master, 
Jesus Christ?) 

He speaks with thee friend, through another. 

(I am delighted. What has he to say to me. I 
am unworthy to be in his presence. ) 

were that so, would he come to thee, hast thou not 
yet learned that he was not a respector of persons, 
that all were equal in His sight that believed. 

( I feel as did St. Thomas when he said : ' My 
Lord and my God.') 

but there are many that do not understand his His 
[' His ' superposed on the first to erase it.] teachings 
that now he is helping to enlighten the mind of man- 
kind through these Earthly channels, its [it] is 
right for them to be opened to the earth. 

(What has he to say to me?) 

Come. . . [pause.] That he is and was the creator 
of the new Law, yes, and that all should strive to 
come by the natural way into this life here and 
do as near the way as he taught when on earth, it 
is a sorrowful thing to es. . . [' es ' erased] behold 
the souls of those that [are] on the earth singing 
praises to Him and then taking the ways of life into 
their own hands, it is not as he said to do, and they 
are not taught to Honor the Father enough, else they 
would value life more, so the error in is in the way 
the teachings are set forth to the people of the 
earth, they do not understand that if they come here 
under a delusion that they are escaping the wrath of 

271 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

the most high, that it can continue here, that if it so 
Pleases the Greater Light they must continue the self 
same existence as they have just left and that by 
* * * * they must perhaps for ages continue 
where they could only have remained in the true light 
there and done their just and right part of life on 
the earth to be able to enter into the pleasure of a 
better life, that is eternal punishment. 

(Does eternal punishment continue forever?) 
it continues until they can by pleading [with] and 
Honoring the Most High God the Father . . . plead- 
ing with Him, I should have said . . . then, if in his 
good pleasure he deems it just that they are alowed 
[allowed] to go a little higher, but it sometimes takes 
them ages, it is as their deeds, so their reward or 
punishment, the part of eternal punishment is with 
the soul of the one that has disobeyed the Father, 
no creeds can help it after these deeds are done, the 
soul must then help itself. 

(Cannot we Episcopalians escape punishment by 
believing in Christ?) 

not from eternal punishment of the way you under- 
stand it. 

(I do not understand. Please explain.) 
* * [they?] the very soul that enters this life 
has to begin to work and help itself [written ' itsefF '] 
for a higher existence, the life here nearest yours is 
what St. Paul said was the first heaven, they must 
that have lied, stolen, or comited [committed] any 
of the Greater sin .... greater sins . . . must remain 
in this abode until he has well purged himself of 
them by prayed to the f . . . Father, then if he has 
not thought to do them again he may be allowed to 
go to the Second higher abode and so as you may see 
his punishment may continue for ages. 

272 



SOME FEATURES IN MEDIUMISTIC PHENOMENA 

(I supposed that belief in Christ gave everlasting 
life, not everlasting punishment. Tell me about 
this.) 

he did not say everlasting life without punish- 
ment, so the deeds done in the body . . . what did I 
just tell you. [Above message read aloud to com- 
municator.] for the deeds, yes. 

( I think you are right. ) 

but the souls that continue on the earth to live 
righteous and Godly lives, doing in the [' in the ' 
erased] as in the presence of God will receive a greater 
blessing, when entering this life they do not need 
to remain on the [' the ' erased] earthwise, but can 
gonne [go on] doing good work amongst the souls 
that are near the earth as He did when he entered this 
life, we are tested, yes. 

(Do I understand that Christ is Imperator, called 
by Robert Hyslop the Greater Light?) [Robert 
Hyslop is the name of my father and purports to com- 
municate through Mrs. Smead at times. Imperator is 
the assumed name of one of the trance personalities 
in the Piper case.] 

I would that thou, friend, could see Him. 

(Do you mean Christ or Imperator, the Greater 
Light?) 

Christ is a light and was one on the Earth. 

(Is Christ Imperator, the Greater Light?) 

[Sign of the cross drawn, which is the sign of Im- 
perator] we could not let the cardinal come this time, 
as you see, friend, a greater than he has been with 
you [' you ' erased] us, yes, and so we will have him 
after the Sabbath. 

(Who has been with me to-day?) 

yes, Jesus Christus, yes. He has been here adn 
[* adn ' erased] and do you doubt. 

273 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

(How can I help doubting? Whom did he talk 
through ? ) 

S. M. is willing to be an interpreter at all times. 

(Did Christ talk through Stainton Moses?) 

You still doubt. 

(Did Christ talk to me through Stainton Moses?) 

I told you at the beginning, yes, he did so. We 
cannot tell the [thee] when the friend that came yes- 
terday can come again, as she exhausts the Light to 
its extreme. 

( Shall I expect the Cardinal the first day after the 
Sabbath?) 

yes, no, no one [on] the first. 

(Shall I sit that day?) 

yes, but no one to talk yet. 

(All right. We shall hold sittings next week as 
usual. ) 

yes, we cannot tell the [thee] now. Oh Most 
Merciful Father we halve [have] try . . . [erased] 
tried in our humble way to do t . . . Thy will, grant 
us th . . . Th, blessing for thee, friend, this day, 
amen." 

The sitting at this point came to an end. But 
Mrs. Smead, when she recovered consciousness, re- 
ported an interesting vision which was described as 
follows : — 

" A man tall, features clear cut, as if cut from 
stone like a model, dark hair, peculiar color or com- 
plexion, full beard and mustache, beard about eight 
inches in length, hair long and curly, hanging over 
his shoulders, hair parted on left side and fell over 
toward the right side. His face was beautiful and 
stately. He looked quiet and peaceful with majestic 

274 



SOME FEATURES IN MEDIUMISTIC PHENOMENA 

bearing. He wore long white robes. The cross was 
not with him, but was seen some distance off." 

Mrs. Smead took this apparition to be that of 
Christ. The description might very well represent 
the historical pictures of him. But Mr. Smead does 
not, and did not at the time, in spite of the appear- 
ance of the record, believe that he was in communica- 
tion with the Savior. He supposed that it was a 
sermon to him by Stainton Moses. 

There are three ways in which we can explain 
such phenomena. (1) We may say that it is con- 
scious pretension that a spirit is producing the re- 
sult; (2) we may call it secondary personality; (3) 
we may say that it is what it claims to be on the 
face of it, namely, messages from the deceased Stain- 
ton Moses, under the hallucination that he is acting 
as an intermediary for the Savior. 

I throw the first of these hypotheses out of account, 
not because it is always to be ignored, but because 
I have reasons independently of this particular rec- 
ord to neglect it. The mistakes and confusions, as 
well as occasional errors in the spelling which are 
not natural to Mrs. Smead in her normal state, and 
various mechanical features of the writing tend to 
justify our disregarding conscious effort to deceive. 
I say nothing of its incompatibility with her whole 
previous life and what I know of its earnestness. 
Disregarding it we must construct some theory which 
rationally explains the phenomena, and we have the 
other two hypotheses to reckon with in this attempt. 

Secondary personality, or unconscious impersona- 
£75 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

tion, such as is common to dream or somnambulic 
states, presents itself as the most likely view, at 
least on a priori grounds, and I have no doubt that 
the student of psychology would feel perfectly as- 
sured of its applicability and validity. There is 
certainly no apparent evidence of a spiritistic source, 
at least as judged by the standards which such a 
theory must adopt in the present status of that doc- 
trine. It is precisely this want of supernormal evi- 
dence on the face of the phenomena that makes all 
attempts at spiritistic explanations seem absurd. 
This would leave us with the alternative of secondary 
personality as the only explanation which would most 
naturally commend itself. 

But accept the hypothesis as satisfactory on a 
priori ground, have we any more evidence that it is 
the true one than we have of the spiritistic? The 
phenomena are undoubtedly similar to many that 
present the claim of a spiritistic source and receive 
the credence of it. But it is precisely the defect 
of proper evidence that makes this view incredible, 
and the most natural theory would be that of sub- 
conscious impersonation. 

A most interesting circumstance in the phenomena 
is that which shows a fairly rational view of pun- 
ishment for sin. The " communications " purport 
to represent the policy of nature or Providence with 
regard to sin, and this is that true punishment is 
the consequence of sin and not some artificial penalty 
such as we have been accustomed to believe. The 
representation is that of conditions in another life 
and of what many wish to know regarding it. More- 

276 



SOME FEATURES IN MEDIUMISTIC PHENOMENA 

over it is also important to remark to the man who 
advances secondary personality as the explanation 
that the type of punishment here defended is not 
the one which Mrs. Smead's theology has held. The 
idea is comparatively new to her mind. She would 
not naturally accept this view from her early teach- 
ing. Her theology makes a very different account 
of punishment for sin, and if her subliminal action is 
producing the results of her previous experience it 
would hardly take the course here manifest. Appar- 
ently, then, the hypothesis of secondary personality 
has difficulty in maintaining itself. 

I have no doubt that many will prefer the spirit- 
istic theory to account for the phenomena and so 
would accept them on their own certificate of non- 
relation to Mrs. Smead's usual habits of thought. 
But there are two very important facts in the record 
itself which the student of psychology will detect 
at sight and which afford him a perfectly good ex- 
cuse for referring the phenomena to secondary per- 
sonality. The first of these facts is the vision at the 
end of the experiment. That apparition is the his- 
torical representation of Christ and can most easily 
be explained by supposing that the general drift 
of the thought during the sitting might easily sug- 
gest such a thing to Mrs. Smead's mind. The sec- 
ond and still more important fact is Mr. Smead's 
own unwary statement to the " communicator " ear- 
lier in the experiment. When he, assuming that he 
was talking to the Cardinal, exclaimed " the grace 
of the Lord Jesus Christ be with thy spirit," he 
gave a most distinct suggestion to Mrs. Smead's 

277 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

subliminal mental action, and we may assume that the 
whole impersonation of Christ was due entirely to 
that suggestion, and that the vision at the terminus 
of it was the result of its momentum as she was re- 
covering consciousness. 

Here the scientific man would say is the advantage 
of a verbatim record of all that occurs on such occa- 
sions. In all ordinary experiments a memory report 
of what was received would be all that we should have 
to base our judgment upon, and unless we were 
familiar with the delicate influences which suggestion 
exercises we should hardly remember our giving rise 
to productions like this by some casual remark of 
our own. We have, therefore, in this record the 
superficial indication at least of a perfectly normal 
explanation of the phenomena, especially when we 
recognize the dramatic character of some of our 
dream life. Our dreams often represent the pres- 
ence and conversation with us of various personali- 
ties living or dead, and as that state is extremely 
susceptible to dramatic play of personality, being 
free of the inhibitions or arrests which affect the 
judgment in normal consciousness, every suggestion 
is liable to take effect, and as Mrs. Smead is a very 
religious woman, or has all her life been addicted 
to a religious view of things, it would be perfectly 
natural that her mind would take this suggestion in 
her trance state. 

Consequently what the spiritualist might accept 
as having an extra mental source, on the ground of 
rationality and antagonism to the natural convic- 
tions of Mrs. Smead, thus becomes interpretable by 

278 



SOME FEATURES IN MEDITJMISTIC PHENOMENA 

subjective action and all the representation of a 
transcendental life would be such " stuff as dreams 
are made of," and the case a good example of what 
we have to be on our guard against in our desire 
to have some definite knowledge of another world. 
Any information about a transcendental existence, 
coming in this way, has to pass the ordeal of just 
such criticism as I have indicated, and students will 
have to learn that the task of certifying the extra- 
mental source of such communications is an extremely 
difficult one. The circumstance which will strike the 
average man of intelligence as absurd is the readi- 
ness with which certain alleged spirits can be called, 
or the apparent ever-presence of any particular per- 
son that may attract the fancy of a medium. We 
cannot easily be made to believe that great historical 
personalities are forever hovering about to make 
themselves known to obscure persons all over the 
world on all sorts of occasions. It is a suspicious 
circumstance that such phenomena should occur, no 
matter how attractive it may appear to our preju- 
dices or wishes. Hence it would be a stumbling block 
to our belief to expect a ready acceptance of such 
phenomena on their superficial character. We might 
more easily accede to the claim that Stainton Moses 
was present, but even this would be feasible only 
on the supposition that his appearance had some 
purpose and consistency with the general scheme of 
the experiments. If he was only a casual visitor, 
as so often appears in phenomena of mediumship 
in general, we could hardly accept his claims an} r 
more readily than we would those of such a person- 

279 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

ality as Jesus. It happens that the appearance of 
Stainton Moses as an alleged communicator in this 
case was a natural accompaniment of the alleged 
presence of other communicators, as the same group 
of personalities have been represented in the Piper 
case. On any theory, especially that of secondary 
personality, Stainton Moses ought to be represented 
as a communicator here. But this sudden and in- 
explicable appearance of Christ can only serve to 
make us sceptical of any source but that of subliminal 
mental action, and this, not because of any prejudices 
which either scepticism or religious belief might en- 
tertain about its possibility, but because of the casual 
and purposeless character of the appearance. When, 
therefore, we find such traces of suggestion as Mr. 
Smead's exclamation, we may well understand the 
represented appearance without having our minds 
perplexed by the semblance of spirit communication. 
But there are some interesting facts which create 
difficulties for the hypothesis of secondary person- 
ality, preferable as it may seem to the student of 
abnormal psychology. While one does not require, 
perhaps, to insist too rigidly that the alternatives 
are to be drawn between subliminal or subjective 
action and spirit influence, and while we may not 
feel attracted to a spirit theory, these facts do not 
justify an uncritical confidence in that of secondary 
personality. If we accept that view we must justify 
it in spite of the difficulties and objections which it 
has to encounter. I do not conceal from myself 
the fact that it has its perplexities as viewed from 
a scientific position, and we are bound to recognize 

280 



SOME FEATURES IN MEDIUMISTlC PHENOMENA 

them. Agnosticism in the matter is better than any 
theory which does not apply. 

The first important fact which is not easily ex- 
plained by secondary personality, as usually man- 
ifested in connection with the fact of suggestibility, 
is the circumstance that Mrs. Smead does not show 
any suggestibility whatever in her trance condition. 
I have many times tried to apply suggestion to her 
in the trance and I have not succeeded in securing 
any evidence of it whatever. We might limit the 
rapport to Mr. Smead, but I have no evidence for 
that fact. She seems as thoroughly proof against 
it as a perfectly normal person usually is. In this 
respect she quite resembles Mrs. Piper in whom I 
have found no proof of suggestibility. Possibly 
this may be the necessary condition of the trance 
which is associated with alleged spirit communica- 
tions. We, of course, do not yet understand that 
state. It is called a trance because it does not show 
any material traces of a condition like that of hyp- 
nosis. That is, the contents of what purports to 
be communications do not resemble essentially the 
contents of hypnotic states under the suggestion of 
an ordinary operator. It is possible for us to obtain 
a view regarding this trance which may ally it with 
hypnotic or somnambulic states. If we do this, how- 
ever, we may be required to interpret the difference 
through the idea of rapport. We have found in 
the experiments of Dr. Moll (Cf. Rapport in der 
Hypnose, Moll), that a subject may not be in rap- 
port with any or every one near by. He may be 
in suggestible relation only to the operator, or to 

281 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

one or two others, or even only to the person whom 
the operator suggests. Rapport is not a fixed or 
universal condition. It apparently exists only in 
degrees. If, then, we supposed that Mrs. Piper's 
and similar trances are to be distinguished from 
hypnosis and ordinary secondary personality only 
by the nature of the rapport, we may find why their 
phenomena take the form of spiritistic communica- 
tions. If they are en rapport with deceased persons 
and not with the living we can well understand why 
they do not respond to suggestion from the living, 
though the trance state may be essentially like hyp- 
nosis in its other characteristics. I understand that 
at one period of her life, the early development of her 
mental condition associated with the trance, Mrs. 
Piper exhibited phenomena of echolalia, which means 
that she echoed whatever she heard uttered in her 
presence. Assuming this condition of her mind and 
body in the trance, and rapport with deceased per- 
sons, we may well comprehend the automatic nature 
of her phenomena and their limitation to real or 
alleged spirit communications. 

Now as we have not found evidence that Mrs. 
Smead is in the least suggestible we may well ask 
how it fares with the incident which we have here 
supposed was due to this action. It is all very 
well to note the possibility as suggested by the 
coincidence between Mr. Smead's exclamation and 
the trend of the communications and the apparition 
at the end, but if Mrs. Smead is so suggestible 
as this we should find frequent indications of its 
presence in all other instances. But it is not appar- 

282 



SOME FEATURES IN MEDIUMISTIC PHENOMENA 

ent in anything that I have observed, and I have been 
wholly unable to prove it or to produce it by ex- 
periment. Consequently, what I have pointed out 
as conceivable indication of this has its force con- 
siderably diminished, or even made doubtful. 

The second fact which disturbs the hypothesis of 
secondary personality is the circumstance that the 
view of eternal punishment taken in Mrs. Smead's 
record is not only quite different from the one most 
natural to her normal beliefs but shows traces of 
identity with the view expressed in the " Spirit 
Teachings " of Stainton Moses himself, which there 
is every reason to believe Mrs. Smead never saw. 
That identity is not of the kind that can be treated 
as scientific evidence, but the resemblance is so close 
that the advocate of secondary personality might 
well seize it as proof of that hypothesis, if there 
were any reason to believe that Mrs. Smead had ever 
seen the book. But Mrs. Smead affirms that she 
has never seen it, and Mr. Smead has not the book 
in his library and has purposely refrained from pur- 
chasing it, so that knowledge of its contents should 
not influence the personality claiming to be Stainton 
Moses. They live at least one hundred miles from 
any library which might be supposed to contain 
the work, and have never consciously had access to 
it in any library with which they are familiar, and 
this knowledge is limited to small libraries which are 
found in country towns. Though Mrs. Smead has 
been familiar with the planchette since her childhood, 
she has not only not read literature on Spiritualism, 
but was brought up in strict orthodoxy and in regions 

283 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

which had few or no library facilities. The only 
assumption that can be made regarding the possi- 
bility of her having seen the book is that she may 
either have seen it casually as a child or have con- 
sulted it in some somnambulic state, both of which 
suppositions are considerably strained, though con- 
ceivably possible. I doubt very much if it is a fact, 
especially as it is a book which one would not easily 
forget, unless read when too young to remember it. 
Her environment and religious habits as a child would 
most probably exclude this supposition. 

The relation between the thought expressed through 
Mrs. Smead and that of the " Spirit Teachings " 
through Stainton Moses can be best determined by 
a comparison. I shall quote passages from " Spirit 
Teachings " that the reader may decide for himself. 
We must remember that this book of Mr. Moses 
purported to be communications from discarnate 
spirits, personalities who allege through Mrs. Piper 
that they are the same spirits who communicated 
through Mr. Moses. The contents of his book rep- 
resent their teaching with regard to spirit life and 
in it they describe the nature of punishment in the 
life after death. 

In one passage, after saying that deceased persons 
who have sinned in this life are free to reform in 
the next life or to remain in their sinful desires, 
the statement of " Spirit Teachings " is as follows : — 

" This is the unpardonable sin. Unpardonable, 
not because the Supreme will not pardon, but because 
the sinner chooses it to be so. Unpardonable, be- 
cause pardon is impossible where sin is congenial 

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SOME FEATURES IN MEDITIMISTIC PHENOMENA 

and penitence unfelt. Punishment is ever the imme- 
diate consequences of sin ; it is of its essence, not 
arbitrarily meted out, but the inevitable result of 
the violation of law." 

In another passage, it says : " This mortal exist- 
ence is but a fragment of life. Its deeds and their 
results remain when the body is dead. The ramifica- 
tions of wilful sin have to be followed out, and its 
results remedied in sorrow and shame." 

Again : " To say that we teach a motiveless reli- 
gion is surely the strangest misconception. What ! 
is it nothing that we teach you that each act in this, 
the seed-time of your life, will bear its own fruit; 
that the results of conscious and deliberate sin must 
be remedied in sorrow and shame at the cost of 
painful toil in far distant ages; that the erring 
spirit must gather up the tangled thread and un- 
ravel the evil of which it was long ages ago the 
perpetrator? " 

This last passage is identical in meaning with the 
Smead record, and in another passage the thought 
is not less identical in that the communicator indi- 
cates that the sin cannot be remedied by another 
but only by the sinner himself, and that no happiness 
is possible for him until he grows a purer, better, 
truer man. And in another passage occurs the fol- 
lowing : 

" The spirit which has been slothful or impure 
gravitates necessarily to its congenial sphere, and 
commences there a period of probation which has 
for its object the purification of the spirit from the 
accumulated habits of its earth-life; the remedying 

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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

in remorse and shame of the evil done, and the 
gradual rising of itself to a higher state to that 
which each process of purification has been a step." 
There are many long passages with the same im- 
port, and though the exact language is not found in 
both sets of records the identity of thought is clear 
enough. It is not sufficient to justify the belief 
or assertion that they have necessarily the same 
source, but considering that Mrs. Smead never saw 
the work I have been quoting, and that she was an- 
nouncing a doctrine more or less at variance with 
her natural beliefs, we may at least entertain a sus- 
picion that their identity is not due to chance. I 
do not claim that the matter has a spirit source in 
either case. There is no adequate scientific proof that 
it had such an origin in the case of Stainton Moses, 
though the teaching was in direct opposition to his 
native beliefs. But whatever the source, the identity 
of the general thought in both cases is unmistakable, 
and as it claims to come from Stainton Moses in the 
Smead case where his original writings were not 
known, the fact has just as much weight against the 
hypothesis of secondary personality as the suppo- 
sition of their identity has. This may not be great, 
but it is not a negligible quantity. Of course, it is 
possible to regard the idea expressed in Mrs. Smead's 
automatic writing as the natural reaction of her own 
mind against her orthodox belief, a reaction possibly 
caused by the growing interest in the real or alleged 
evidence of spirit return through her own writing. 
But it is not possible to decide this one way or the 
other, though the admitted possibility of that growth 

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SOME FEATURES IN MEDIUMISTIC PHENOMENA 

makes it unnecessary to press the objection to sec- 
ondary personality on the basis mentioned. It might 
be a casual coincidence that the two should have iden- 
tical views on a question in which the most natural 
tendencies of the mind are to accept the specified 
view of punishment. But without denying the expla- 
nation of secondary personality it is quite legitimate 
to insist that the identity of the teaching in the two 
cases is not favorable to the hypothesis of subjective 
creation on the part of Mrs. Smead and that it is 
consistent with another and more important theory, 
even though that theory be neither provable nor sat- 
isfactory in this case. 

I shall not reject the hypothesis of secondary per- 
sonality, in spite of the objections to its assured 
application. It may be possible on other grounds 
than the doubtfulness of the spiritistic view. But 
the circumstance that Mrs. Smead has shown no 
traces of suggestibility, which had been invoked to 
explain the curious claim that the indirect communi- 
cator was Christ, and that the contents of the com- 
munications are so identical, or nearly identical, with 
those which we might expect Stainton Moses to be- 
lieve or to remember, clearly establishes a duty to 
as much suspense of judgment on that view as we 
may be supposed to feel on other grounds against 
the spiritistic doctrine. We are not to feel any 
special favor for secondary personality simply be- 
cause we feel unimpressed with a less reputable view. 
It may be wiser to admit ignorance on both sides of 
the subject. 

But whatever our individual predilections, all must 
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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

admit that it is fair to discuss one possibility as 
much as another. We have presented three alter- 
native explanations of the phenomena under review, 
and rejected the first one as in fact out of the ques- 
tion, namely, that of conscious fabrication. If we 
are entitled to admit the possibility of spirit com- 
munication it should receive such attention as its 
admitted rivalry with subliminal mental action en- 
titles it to receive. I do not grant its possibility on 
a priori grounds or upon the evidence in the record. 
Neither of these reasons would suffice to justify any- 
thing. But the mass of the supernormal that is 
relevant in many cases to the spiritistic hypothesis, 
and the existence in the Smead case of phenomena 
that classify it with that of Mrs. Piper make spirit 
communications such a possibility that we cannot 
easily assign its limits, and hence for the sake of 
understanding how it may be invoked to explain 
incidents in the record under consideration which are 
not so easily explicable by secondary personality, I 
shall tolerate the spiritistic hypothesis and see what 
it will effect. I shall not assume that it is necessarily 
the true view to be taken, but simply as one to be 
tested in the same way as its rival alternative. 

What I wish to show is that it is possible to sup- 
pose the spiritistic theory in the case without accept- 
ing the view that the communicator is other than 
Stainton Moses. The believer in the spirit theory 
is always tempted to take that view on the face of 
the returns, so to speak. But in supposing that 
spirits have anything to do with the phenomena I 

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SOME FEATURES IN MEDIUMISTIC PHENOMENA 

do not feel compelled to assume that Christ is either 
directly or indirectly the communicator as claimed. 
We need not go beyond supposing that it is Stainton 
Moses. I do not pretend that there is any satisfac- 
tory evidence of his presence, but that, with this 
theory once justified in other cases, it is rational to 
try the hypothesis to see how much may be explicable 
by it which does not seem clear on that of secondary 
personality. 

Let us, then, assume that Stainton Moses deceased 
is actually in " control " and that he is trying to 
communicate. We may venture to consider the iden- 
tity of view in the case with his past experiences in 
life to be evidence of his presence and attempt to 
communicate, taking this with other references to 
him through Mrs. Smead and more or less evidential 
incidents in connection with him. I cannot quote 
these, as they would require too much space. Now 
if there are peculiar difficulties associated with at- 
tempts to communicate with the living, such as are 
indicated throughout all or nearly all instances of 
" possession " mediumship, we may well imagine a 
source and explanation for the perplexities involved 
in the messages. These difficulties I have summed up 
as an abnormal mental condition while communicat- 
ing, in addition to correlated difficulties in the abnor- 
mal condition of the medium. This abnormal men- 
tal condition of the communicator may be compared 
to a state of secondary personality in its dreamlike 
or somnambulic character. It is much more like 
somnambulism than chaotic dreaming in many cases, 

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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

and so shows an active mental condition, though it is 
prevented from having that rational control which 
characterizes normal consciousness. 

Now if we suppose this somnambulic condition of 
Stainton Moses we may well understand that he is 
suggestible and liable to all the phenomena which 
exhibit themselves in suggestible persons. As I have 
not been able to find suggestibility in Mrs. Smead 
we may transfer the application of the hypothesis 
to the communicator and see how it fits the facts. 
Assuming, then, that Stainton Moses is somnambulic 
and suggestible while communicating, we may well 
understand how he should impersonate another, pro- 
vided the same hallucinatory tendencies showed them- 
selves in his mental action that so often are asso- 
ciated with somnambulic, delirious, and dream con- 
ditions with the living. It is well known that dreams, 
deliria, and hallucinations are more or less closely 
related to each other in the functions exercised, and 
somnambulism and hypnosis exhibit the same char- 
acteristics in many, if not all cases. We know what 
a sense of reality accompanies hallucinations, and 
how easily a morbid mental condition mistakes them 
for real objects, the person experiencing them not 
being responsible for his error of judgment and 
being incapable of correcting it. If this be the con- 
dition of Stainton Moses we may well suppose that 
Mr. Smead's reference to Christ created a hallucina- 
tion in his mind ; i. e., it put a thought into his mind 
which immediately took the form of reality, and 
was, in his morbid condition, construed as we do 
the objects in our dreams. I have already alluded 

290 



SOME FEATURES IN MEDIUMISTIC PHENOMENA 

to the dramatic play of our dreams in which we 
carry on conversations and discussions as real as in 
life with persons whose non-reality we rarely sus- 
pect until we awaken and look at the experience from 
a normal point of view. There is no reason to deny 
this condition in Stainton Moses, in this assumed 
condition for communicating, and in fact there is 
much to sustain the contention. Impersonation is 
a marked feature of such experiences, and every 
idea that comes into the mind will naturally take the 
form of the " apperception mass," or main thought 
of the moment, if it does not arrest it, so that, with 
this supposed suggestibility of Stainton Moses, he 
would naturally impersonate communication with 
Christ, once he became possessed with the notion of 
his reality, itself a product of his hallucinatory con- 
dition. In the interfusion of his mental condition 
with the personality, subliminal personality, of Mrs. 
Smead, which is presumably suggestible from the 
spiritual and not the material side of her being, 
we may well suppose that the idea or hallucination 
is transmitted to her mind and emerges as a dream 
or hypnogogic product as she comes out of the 
trance. 

Nor is this supposed interfusion of personalities 
an a priori conjecture. It exhibits itself in nearly 
all mediumistic phenomena. I cannot undertake here 
to prove it. I only assert that I am not making 
the assumption arbitrarily and without cumulative 
evidence in other cases. That is, the hypothesis is 
not constructed for the occasion. It is the common 
phenomenon in mediumistic experiences, and all that 

291 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

seems new — and this may not really be new — is 
the coincidence between the impersonation on " the 
other side " and the vision of Mrs. Smead in the 
borderland state. 

It is noticeable in the contents of Mrs. Smead's 
record that the communications purport to represent 
the state of things in a transcendental world. It is 
said that the system of punishment is only the con- 
tinuance of the sinful condition of this life, that 
virtue and vice are their own rewards, etc. Appar- 
ently we have material which would answer the query 
regarding what the after life is. But if we are 
to assume this to be communication from the other 
world at all, its contents are the memory of Stainton 
Moses, or at least mingled with the experiences of 
his memory. We have seen that there is more or 
less identity between what his " Spirit Teachings " 
taught and this purported communication from him 
after death, and if we accept this view of the facts 
we have no evidence whatever that he is correctly 
representing the conditions of a spiritual world. He 
is only repeating, in a somnambulic state, the mem- 
ories of his earthly life as expressed in his work, 
and in that work itself the " control " recognized 
that the communications were colored by Stainton 
Moses' own mind while he was receiving the messages. 
" Your state now colors your views," says a passage 
of " Spirit Teachings." " Much we are obliged to 
clothe in allegory, and to elucidate by borrowing 
your phraseology." In another communication the 
same personality, speaking of a demand by Stainton 
Moses for a specific type of evidence, said that the 

292 



SOME FEATURES IN MEDIUMISTIC PHENOMENA 

result would be " imperfect and unreliable, from the 
admixture of your own mental action and that of 
the circle." In still another passage Stainton Moses 
was told that the communications are affected by his 
own mind, especially when he was not well. 

This same modifying influence would be expected 
in the mental habits of Mrs. Smead, and hence, given 
the somnambulic state of Stainton Moses when com- 
municating, we should naturally expect a tendency 
to reproduce more or less of his memories associated 
with the very subject which had been discussed in 
his own automatic writing when living, and such 
they seem to be. Accepting them as such we readily 
perceive the weakness of supposing that they cor- 
rectly report the conditions of the life after death, 
even though they suffice to prove the fact of it. 
There are no means of testing how much the mind of 
Mrs. Smead may have influenced the purity of the 
communications. 

An interesting incident recently in the Smead case 
reinforces the hypothesis here suggested. In a sit- 
ting occurring a few days before and reported to 
me at once, my father purports to communicate, and 
he alludes to this Cardinal which has been mentioned 
in connection with the record under discussion. He 
asks Mrs. Smead if this Cardinal may be permitted 
to serve as a helper in the work of communicating. 
I quote the record: 

" We would ask that the friend who calls himself 
C. L. be granted the permission to help here. Will 
it be desirable, friends? He will ofttimes give his 
former ideas, but of course [they] are changed with 

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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

his experiences, as are all our views in waking in 
this life." 

The italics are my own. But what the passage 
emphasizes is the unconscious evidence which it sup- 
plies to the tendency of spirits to reproduce their 
memories in some form, not always in incidents, but 
often in views, and as often distorted and made un- 
intelligible by intermixture with new ideas acquired 
in their new experience and uncommunicable in sen- 
sory terms that can be clear. While all this does 
not prove that Stainton Moses is actually communi- 
cating in the Smead case it does explain why the 
messages take that form, if we assume for hypothet- 
ical purposes that he is communicating. We have 
then only to suppose (and there is much evidence 
in mediumistic phenomena to warrant our belief) 
that communicators are in a highly suggestible con- 
dition, some of them at least, and this once assumed 
we can well understand the form of impersonation 
imagined in this special case. 

That such is possible is still further indicated by 
the common phenomenon in mediumistic communica- 
tions, especially of the subliminal as distinct from 
the possession type of psychic, that the messages 
seem to describe objects seen, where we have only 
to suppose that the things seen are telepathically 
transmitted phantasms. They may be hallucinations 
of the veridical type in the medium produced tele- 
pathically from an extraneous source, and they may 
be, in addition, phantasms in the mind of the com- 
municator, a phenomenon that seems to be supported 
by some cases of telepathy between the living. That 

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SOME FEATURES IN MEDIUMISTIC PHENOMENA 

is, in some cases, it seems that a predisposition to 
hallucinatory images in connection with thoughts by 
the agent is accompanied by similar conditions in 
the percipient as at least an aid in the success of 
telepathy. Assuming this to be more true of a 
spiritual than of a material world, as we may well 
do from what we know of subliminal mental action 
in the living, we can well imagine that this function 
figures in that type of messages which involve appar- 
ent description of things and events in the other life. 
If we accept it, the whole set of phenomena fall 
into easy interpretation on the spiritistic hypothesis, 
and we should only have to await adequate evidence 
to prove it to be a fact. 

It might be objected that this theory is too com- 
plicated. But I should reply that it is either not 
complicated at all or that it is less so than the ordi- 
nary hypotheses which are advanced to eliminate 
the spiritistic. Besides it would not make any differ- 
ence about its applicability if it were as complicated 
as it may be supposed to be. If it explains more 
rationally than others it would have the preference. 
But I must contest the claim that it is especially 
complicated, at least that it is any more complicated 
than the materialistic theory of subjective hallucina- 
tions. All that I am doing is to suppose the same 
psychological phenomena in a discarnate that we find 
in an incarnate mind. We find extreme suggestibil- 
ity and somnambulic conditions very frequently asso- 
ciated in the living, and it is the only explanation 
which normal and abnormal psychology accepts of 
certain phenomena in the living. It is no worse 

295 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

to suppose the same laws of action in the discarnate. 
It is as simple in one as in the other, and if it ex- 
plains it is entitled to recognition as an hypothesis, 
pending the production of evidence for its actual 
truth. 

Nor will it alter matters to say or suppose that 
subjective hallucinations and abnormal phenomena 
generally in the living are caused by morbid brain 
conditions, as all such phenomena are mental in 
nature, no matter what their antecedent cause in 
brain action. Of course, on the materialistic theory 
they are purely cerebral as well as the normal mental 
states. But if we have evidence in the proper super- 
normal phenomena for the existence of a soul and 
its survival — and survival is necessary to prove its 
existence now — we should have to treat all normal 
and abnormal mental phenomena as functions of the 
soul, with such interaction between body and soul 
as permits at least an efficient causal relation between 
them. Hence being mental phenomena in any case 
and determined by the nature of the mind rather than 
the occasional or exciting cause, we can understand 
how hallucinatory functions would characterize a dis- 
carnate mind in any abnormal conditions of its ex- 
ercise. This supposition would do no violence to 
any scientific doctrine of a soul and would have the 
advantage of as simple an explanation of certain 
phenomena having a claim to a spiritistic origin as 
any similar phenomena in living minds. In fact, it 
would seem that scientific method and the very con- 
ception of personal identity would compel us to sup- 
pose the same mental functions as such in a spiritual 

296 



SOME FEATURES IN MEDIUMISTIC PHENOMENA 

world as a condition of supposing any survival at 
all, and with this granted we should have abundant 
right to extend hypotheses of mental action which 
explain certain facts in the living to explain similar 
phenomena in the deceased. We are thus conforming 
to the very demand of science that we avoid the 
multiplication of hypotheses. In the procedure here 
adopted I have only accepted and applied the very 
theory which psychologically explains the same type 
of facts in the living, and the question of simplicity 
and complexity is, for that reason, excluded from 
the account. 

There is an interesting incident which in some 
respects confirms the hypothesis here advanced for 
mental conditions on " the other side." It finds its 
suggestiveness from the general theory of idealism 
accepted by the philosophers. This doctrine main- 
tains that all our ideas are mental constructs. By 
this is meant that our minds have to form their 
own conceptions and representations of reality, that 
we do not see things as they in reality are, but that 
their appearances are the result of mental reaction 
upon stimuli whose nature we cannot describe in 
sense terms or experiences. These forms of reality, 
as it appears, are determined by the way the mind 
is affected, and in this material world the bodily 
senses modify the relation between the outer world 
and the inner life. Now there is a distinction be- 
tween sensational and inner experience. Sensation 
occurs only on the occasion of physical stimuli, but 
inner mental action and its conceptions are either 
not due to external stimuli or are not related to it 

297 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

in any such way as normal sensations. Now the 
subliminal life of the mind, even when it reproduces 
the forms of sensory experience, does not represent 
external reality as do sensations, and in our dreams, 
deliria, and hallucinations, whether systematic or 
otherwise, we have functions which do not depend 
on correlated physical stimuli of the normal type to 
explain their character. That is, inner activity may 
simulate a real world, though the physical conditions 
which determine a normal experience are not present. 
The normal physical functions may be wholly sus- 
pended and yet the inner functions of the mind may 
completely simulate reality. 

Now if a soul exists and survives death it simply 
casts off the physical organism which determines its 
relation to the physical and sensory world. There 
remain, by hypothesis, those inner functions which 
may produce all the appearances of reality without 
its being other than a thought world. In a life 
after death the conditions for a more literal realiza- 
tion of idealism may exist than in the bodily life, 
and if we could make the normal condition after 
death what a philosophic friend once said to me he 
wished it were, namely, a rationalized dream life, we 
might well understand many of the reported phenom- 
ena which perplex the student of psychology and 
the man of the world in the investigation of spirit- 
istic theories. We would only interpret such phe- 
nomena as we are discussing in the light of mental 
productions without physical stimuli, productions 
under the law of habits which we formed in the body. 
But whether determined by these habits or not they 

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SOME FEATURES IN MEDIUMISTIC PHENOMENA 

would be conceived as subjective activities, and if 
telepathy be a more general mode of communication 
in the spiritual world we could understand many 
phenomena occurring in it which seem perplexing 
now. Until we became familiar with the processes 
of such a world we should take for physical reality 
the hallucinatory products of our own mind. The 
intermediate state of our development might be 
fraught with abnormal conditions until we became 
adjusted to the new environment. 

Now I come to the incident which I had in mind 
when introducing this discussion on the basis of the 
orthodox idealism. I obtained a verbal report re- 
cently from a purely private source of some real 
or alleged communications from a man who died a 
few years ago. He was a rising man in his depart- 
ment of work and was prematurely cut off by death. 
His family has been apparently in communication 
with him, and the evidence for this, not through a 
professional medium, is of the same type as the 
Piper phenomena. In one of his communications, 
however, while commenting on the peculiarities of 
his spiritual life he stated that he " sometimes saw, 
for instance, a man reading a book, but when he 
approached to talk with him he found it was only a 
thought." 

This is sufficiently paradoxical at least to strike 
our attention, and if we are of the Philistine type 
we will summarily reject it as absurd. But as the 
report can not be treated as fraudulent and as it 
is not a natural view to take of such a world, we have 
only to ask how it comports with other phenomena 

299 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

purporting to come from a transcendental life. I 
think that it will be perfectly easy to explain it 
on the lines just suggested. Suppose it to be an 
hallucination in the spiritual world, if you like, tel- 
epathically transmitted from some other spirit, and 
we have no difficulty in understanding it. The per- 
son who reported the fact to me took it as evidence 
of " thought forms," assuming that " thoughts are 
things." This may be true for all that I know, but 
it is more in accordance with the orthodox idealism 
and with the multifarious incidents of mediumistic 
communications associated with subliminal processes 
of all kinds, to interpret it as a veridical hallucina- 
tion in the spiritual life, or even a subjective one, 
than to suppose it to represent a reality so at vari- 
ance with all that we know. Assuming this view of 
the incident, we can well comprehend such phenom- 
ena as we have provisionally referred to the suggesti- 
bility and somnambulism of a real Stainton Moses 
communicating under adverse circumstances. The 
same general functions are involved in the explana- 
tion of this incident under notice as we assume in 
that of Mr. Moses, namely, a liability to hallucina- 
tions which are taken for reality, just as we all do 
in our ordinary dreams and deliria. 

I am not defending the spiritistic theory of the 
facts as the true hypothesis in the record under re- 
view, but only its capacity to explain the facts. 
It may not be true. The evidential criterion has 
not been satisfied. But neither is the evidential as- 
pect of secondary personality satisfied. All that I 
have been trying to do is to ascertain which theory 

300 



SOME FEATURES IN MEDIUMISTIC PHENOMENA 

explains certain facts and which does not. It seems 
to me that the spiritistic hypothesis best applies to 
all the phenomena in the case, even though it may not 
be true in fact and though we might prefer that of 
secondary personality if we had consistent evidence 
in its support. 

But the most important lesson from the incidents 
is that which shows the reservations we have to make 
in accepting as evidence of conditions in a spiritual 
world, statements that we assume to come from spir- 
its. There are few records that offer a better oppor- 
tunity than this one for testing the claims to a 
revelation of transcendental conditions. The evi- 
dence on the whole, taking other incidents into ac- 
count than those present, are sufficient to suggest 
the possibility and nothing more of spirit communi- 
cation, and the facts are just perplexing enough to 
raise serious doubts about it, partly from the lim- 
itations of the theory of secondary personality on 
the part of Mrs. Smead, and partly from the nat- 
ural dubiousness that the facts could be all that they 
claim to be. But some unity is needed to account for 
them when fraud is excluded, and when this can be 
sought in a combination of supernormal sources for 
the messages and an abnormal condition analogous 
to somnambulism and suggestibility in the living, 
we remove all the perplexities apparent in the sup- 
position of the superficial claims of the matter while 
we escape the difficulties incident to the hypothesis 
of subliminal action and fabrication on Mrs. Smead's 
part. That is to say, we neither accept the com- 
munications as correctly representing a spiritual 

301 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

world, while we admit the possibility of that source 
for them, nor admit the sufficiency of secondary per- 
sonality as an explanation of them. The analysis 
also illustrates the fact that the alternative between 
subliminal production by Mrs. Smead and spiritistic 
reality as apparent is not so sharply drawn as contro- 
versial demands would like to have it, and such a 
view illustrates the need of patience and critical 
methods in the treatment of these and similar phe- 
nomena. 

What we need, to make the hypothesis of sec- 
ondary personality perfectly applicable to the case, 
is more knowledge of its nature and laws of action. 
It is all very well to use it to explain phenomena 
which we have no reason to believe are consciously 
fraudulent and which are not evidential of the super- 
normal, but we require to meet the responsibilities 
which every man assumes when he presents an hypoth- 
esis. We must be able to apply it to details 
consistently with the known facts and to give sat- 
isfactory evidence that it is true. We have not yet 
determined the nature and limits of secondary per- 
sonality, and cannot do more than appeal to it as 
a precaution against hasty credulity in more difficult 
theories until we have subjected it to a more thorough 
investigation. From what we know of the work of 
Dr. Boris Sidis in Psychopathology and of Dr. Mor- 
ton Prince in the same field, especially in the Beau- 
champ case, we may well entertain a large extension 
of the capacities of subliminal impersonation. But 
in none of these cases of the psychiatrist, have they 
reached the kind of realism and dramatic play which 

302 



SOME FEATURES IN MEDIUMISTIC PHENOMENA 

characterizes such instances as we are studying, and 
hence whatever value secondary personality may have 
for putting limitations on spiritism it will not be a 
universal solvent until we know more about it. So 
much we may as well frankly admit and demand 
the means and opportunities for studying it ade- 
quately. Its weaknesses, however, will be no excuse 
for accepting the alternative hypothesis, which may 
seem more difficult of belief than the more familiar 
phenomena of abnormal psychology. The utmost 
that we can do is to test the hypotheses for their 
consistency and possibility, and then look for the 
evidence which will prove one rather than the other. 
Such evidence we do not possess in the record before 
us, and it is not pretended that it is the desired evi- 
dence. It is only an example of the kind of phe- 
nomena which exist in large quantities and which 
more and more demand an intelligible explanation. 
The case can be summarized in the following man- 
ner, assuming that we have two general hypotheses 
which will serve as the points of view to be at least 
emphasized as the primary factors in the phenomena. 

(1) We may hold that the whole product is one of 
secondary personality, and this in spite of the real 
or apparent difficulties which I have discussed. This 
will discredit a transcendental source for the facts. 

(2) We may concede that secondary personality is 
not adequate and, though accepting the applicability 
of the spiritistic theory, we have no reason to suppose 
that it rightly represents the alleged source of the 
statements made, at least in so far as the assumed 
chief communicator is concerned. It has been with 

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PSYCHICAL. RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

a view of indicating this limitation of judgment in 
the case that I have discussed the spiritistic possi- 
bility at all. The opportunity for sustaining a more 
or less conservative and critical method was so im- 
portant that it could not be lost, and it must not be 
supposed that the hypothesis thus entertained has 
anything like the evidence for its being a fact that 
it has for its mere conceivability. 



304 



CHAPTER X 

TELEPATHY 

Telepathy has been such a solvent of difficulties 
in psychic research when people were not willing to 
admit what they did not know, that it is time to 
" take stock " of this term. Hardly a phenomenon 
during the last twenty years has appeared that has 
not at least suggested to certain kinds of minds the 
explanation of it by some sort of " telepathy." In 
season and out of season it has played a prominent 
part in the attempt to escape some other and perhaps 
more simple theory. But the time has come to ascer- 
tain with some clearness what we mean by it. We 
think that " mind reading " and " thought transfer- 
ence " make good synonyms for it and so they may, 
but they are no clearer conceptions when we are 
pressed for their exact meaning. The scepticism 
which prevails in scientific quarters as to the mere 
facts of " telepathy " is more than half due to the 
circumstance that we can never learn from popular 
usage what definite limits it is supposed to have, 
or what are the laws and conditions under which 
the phenomena denoted by it may happen to occur. 
If popular conceptions about it were clear and if the 
facts which the untrained mind tries to explain by 
it had any simple general characteristics which the 
assumed explanation made intelligible we might take 
a charitable view of the term. But such a medley 

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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

of real or alleged phenomena is referred to it that 
the term is like " special providence " for explana- 
tion. It is assumed to explain any coincidence that 
may happen to occur in the experiences of two minds, 
or any class of supernormal phenomena that are 
mental. This overweight of meaning attached to 
it is just the circumstance that makes the scientific 
man pause at its use and application. We can ex- 
plain the distribution of the planets by gravitation 
but not the distribution of animals. Science has 
some respect to relevancy when it classifies effects 
under causes, but the extravagant believer in telep- 
athy seems to know no bounds to his credulity if 
only he can evade something more rational but less 
respectable. 

In popular parlance " telepathy " is a name for 
a process supposed to explain the supernormal ac- 
quisition of information without regard to any lim- 
its whatever. If Mr. Smith happens to learn super- 
normally some facts which can be shown to have once 
been known by Mr. Jones, " telepathy " is supposed 
to explain them, and they may even be construed 
as evidence of this. If Mr. Jones does not happen 
to know them, or to have experienced them, and we 
learn that some friends of his did know them we 
are confronted with " telepathy " a trois. This 
means that in some way Smith is put into rapport 
with Jones's friend and filches the facts from his 
memory telepathically. Or if Jones's friend does 
not know them and they happen to be known by his 
friend Barlow whom Jones does not know the rapport 
with Barlow is established through the relation of 

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TELEPATHY 

his friend to Jones and the process is as easy as 
before. In this way " telepathy " is made to do 
anything and to indicate an ad libitum access to the 
minds and memories of all living persons. That is 
a capacious power which it is hard to defeat m an 
argument, especially when it is assumed a priori 
and without one iota of scientific evidence in its sup- 
port. It is so arbitrary in its application that it 
takes no account of the fact that the process never 
seems to occur except when it is necessary to sim- 
ulate some other explanation and it becomes the part 
of men who have no sense of humor to believe any- 
thing rather than confess ignorance or agnosticism. 

If those who use " telepathy " so freely to explain 
mysteries would take the trouble to examine the con- 
ditions under which it obtained currency and the 
facts which required its acceptance they would have 
no difficulty in understanding the limits of its use. 
Its original meaning was " a coincidence between two 
persons' thoughts which requires a causal explana- 
tion." It is to be noticed in this conception that it 
is not a name for a cause of any kind. It but de- 
nominates a fact for which we have still to seek and 
find the cause. This is a most important circum- 
stance to keep in mind, as it assigns a decided limita- 
tion to the usage of the term which is so popular. 

The phenomena which gave rise to the employment 
of the term were just what the definition indicates, 
namely, coincidences between the thoughts of persons 
which were not due to chance. It is probable that 
the performances of Bishop and Cumberland with 
their claims of " mind reading " gave the problem of 

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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

investigating and explaining such coincidences its 
emphasis and importance. But their performances, 
with similar others described in books of magic, were 
not all that suggested the idea. There were and are 
spontaneous coincidences between people's thoughts 
which were not exposed to the suspicion of prestidigi- 
tation and so made the question of their explanation 
a more serious one. The situation gave rise to the 
effort to organize the investigation of such phenom- 
ena, and experiment succeeded in reproducing similar 
coincidences under test conditions. The phenomena 
did not seem explicable by chance, but seemed to 
indicate some causal nexus between antecedent and 
consequent, and as this was unusual the best thing 
to do was to denominate it by a term which did not 
carry with it any associations with known normal 
agencies. 

There are three distinct groups of coincidence to 
which the popular and unscientific mind applies the 
term " telepathy," and only one of these to which 
the scientific mind applies it. The first group of 
facts is that which is comprised of the present active 
mental states of the agent obtained by a percipient. 
The agent is the person whose thoughts are sup- 
posedly transmitted: the percipient is the person who 
receives the thoughts transferred. The second group 
of phenomena consists of those facts which a per- 
cipient obtains and which the agent present at the 
experiment is not thinking of at the time, but has 
them in his memory. They represent experiences or 
knowledge which he once had and which he may or 
may not recall at the time they are reproduced for 

308 



TELEPATHY 



him by another person or psychic. The third group 
of facts consists of those which represent events not 
known by the agent or sitter present at an experi- 
ment but which can be proved to have been the knowl- 
edge of some other living person at the time and at 
any distance imaginable from the place of the experi- 
ment. This assumes that the percipient can select at 
any distance from the memory of any living person 
such facts as are desirable to use for the impersona- 
tion of such persons as may suit the medium's object, 
and this consciously or unconsciously. This is the 
most comprehensive application which the term ob- 
tains and is complicated with various incredible con- 
ceptions of rapport. 

The first of these conceptions of the term is the 
only one that is entitled to any scientific standing. 
It derived its significance from several considerations 
which associated it as a phenomenon more closely with 
what is known regarding the law of cause and effect 
than in any case involved in the second and third 
group of facts. The first thing was the coincidence 
between the agent's present thoughts and those which 
the percipient had at the same time. But this was 
only one aspect of the case. The suggestive circum- 
stance was the fact that in mechanical phenomena 
the antecedent is supposed to be the cause of the con- 
sequent and it is the activity of the antecedent that 
enables us to assume causality in its relation to the 
consequent. The fact that the two are associated 
closely in time and space is the circumstance that 
enables us to prove this causality, though it might 
not actually constitute it. But it is the analogy of 

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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

telepathic with mechanical coincidences in respect of 
this activity that makes it plausible at least to sup- 
pose a causal nexus when the coincidence is observed. 
If it were not for this circumstance it is possible that 
we should never think of the direct causal connection 
in telepathic phenomena. It is the present active 
state of consciousness that we can assume to be a 
cause, just as any present active state in a physical 
object is presumably the cause of some event in- 
variably associated with it. It is probably this fact 
which gives telepathy its real or apparent consistency 
with the materialistic interpretation of mental 
phenomena. But whether this be true or not, it is the 
existence of mental coincidences between different per- 
sons taken in connection with the assumption that 
active conditions of a subject may be causal of in- 
variable consequents that makes the idea of a causal 
relation of a supernormal type between mind and 
mind a reasonable assumption. 

Now the evidence of some causal relation is appar- 
ent in such records as the Proceedings of the Society 
for Psychical Research, and I shall not illustrate 
them here. I shall either refer those who are not con- 
vinced of the phenomena to those records or take for 
granted that the phenomena are numerous enough to 
justify the assumption of a nexus not due to chance 
in such cases, and then proceed to indicate what 
" telepathy " means when applied to them. All that 
" telepathy " means and meant in reference to these 
facts is that they are not due to chance, but that 
some causal relation exists between the antecedent 
and consequent. It does not explain the phenomena 

310 



TELEPATHY 

in any respect. It is not a name for a cause of any 
kind whatever. It only indicates that the normal 
causes are not present or at least not discoverable. 
In so far as causality is concerned the term denotes 
no positive agency, but is purely negative in its im- 
port. It does not name a known cause, but indicates 
that the known causes do not explain the facts and 
that some as yet unknown cause must account for 
what is not due to chance and so they bear the marks 
of having some causal agency yet to be found. 

This limitation of the meaning of the term should 
be emphasized and repeated. It is not the name of 
any cause or of any process by which the causal nexus 
between persons' thoughts is established. It does 
not explain the phenomenon, as is too frequently sup- 
posed, but actually leaves it wholly unexplained. It 
is merely a convenient expression to denote that we 
have gone beyond the normally explicable and are 
still seeking the explanatory cause. Hence so far 
from explaining thought coincidences it explains 
nothing whatever. It only names the facts which re- 
quire explanation and any attempt on the part of a 
psychic researcher to deceive the reader with the 
assumption that phenomena are explained by it de- 
serves the severest scientific reprobation. It may 
well indicate that a phenomenon is not explained in 
some other way, or at least is not evidence of that ex- 
planation, but it is not a name for any positive causal 
agency that is known, though it may become known 
under further investigation. It only refers a fact 
to some cause yet unknown even when it implies that 
a certain specific cause is not indicated by the facts. 

311 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

The fact that it may exclude the belief in spirit 
agency does not make it an explanation of the phe- 
nomena concerned. It merely indicates that the 
phenomena which had associated themselves with spir- 
itistic causes are to be explained by the same causes 
which were supposed to extend beyond the normal 
action of sense without presenting evidence of these 
immaterial agencies. 

It is because the term has been constantly used to 
denote an alternative to spiritism that its original 
meaning has been forgotten or ignored. The con- 
ception of spirit is actually explanatory of certain 
phenomena and in criticizing the evidence for this 
view of them the possibility of telepathy came in to 
eliminate certain facts assumed to be evidence of the 
former and in this comparison of the two ideas telep- 
athy borrowed an explanatory import which it did 
not and does not possess. The reason for this is 
the simple fact that every problem has two distinct 
aspects which we too frequently forget. They are 
the explanatory and the evidential. They are often 
so closely associated that they may be mistaken for 
one another. They should be briefly examined. 

The explanatory function of a conception is to 
denote a cause that will account for the occurrence of 
an event. Thus gravitation is supposed to explain 
why objects fall to the ground, sunlight is an agent 
in accounting for the growth of vegetation, heat is 
an explanation of expansion in bodies, electricity 
names a cause in a great variety of phenomena, and 
so on with hundreds of terms. Now when any new 
phenomenon appears demanding an explanation and 

312 



TELEPATHY 

we refer it to one of these we already take their exist- 
ence for granted and the new phenomenon is not an 
evidence of their existence. For instance I find a 
group of new phenomena in the behavior of certain 
physical bodies, phenomena exhibiting certain re- 
semblances to the known action of electricity, and I 
at once refer the phenomena to that source. I do so 
to avoid the hypothesis of new agencies. If known 
causes explain the facts I have no reason to interpret 
these facts as evidence of new agencies, and the new 
facts are not evidence of the existence of the assumed 
causes. They are simply explained by them. If 
they were not explained by them we should have a 
right to seek new causes to account for their occur- 
rence. The possibility of appealing to existing 
causes to account for new facts makes it unnecessary 
to set up new agents in the cosmos, and, though such 
new agents may happen to exist, we have to seek else- 
where for evidence of the fact. Some other reality 
explains the phenomena equally well and when that is 
known to exist on other grounds the new facts do 
not appear as evidence of it. They are simply ex- 
plained by it. 

The evidential aspect of a problem is much nar- 
rower than its explanatory. There are fewer situa- 
tions in which facts serve as evidence of the existence 
of a cause than when they are explicable by it. Facts 
will serve to prove the existence of a cause only when 
they cannot be explained by known agencies. As 
long as alternative causes may exist, the facts ex- 
plicable by any one of them are not proof of any, 
and especially not proof of a new cause whose exist- 

313 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

ence may possibly be questioned, or for which the 
evidence is less than well known agents. Let me 
illustrate the evidential and explanatory aspect of 
one problem, namely, the velocity of light. A phe- 
nomenon in the eclipse of the moons of Jupiter served 
to prove, or render most probable, the fact that light 
had velocity. The supposition that it had velocity 
might very well have been entertained as a corollary 
of certain other facts, but proof may have been want- 
ing. Its transmission from the sun to the earth was 
an admitted fact and that it had velocity or required 
a period of time for this transmission could be ex- 
plained by this velocity, if we could show that time 
was involved. Consequently when certain phenomena 
were observed in the eclipses of the moons of Jupiter, 
they seemed to prove that this time element was in- 
volved in the transmission of light. For instance it 
was noticed that at one period the eclipses of a moon 
was earlier than the calculated astronomical time and 
at another later than this. This fact coincided with 
the fact that at one of these periods the light had 
to traverse the distance represented by the diameter 
of the earth's orbit greater than at the other period. 
Consequently the difference of time was an evidence 
of velocity in the transmission of light. In the ordi- 
nary phenomena of sunlight and its transmission there 
is no situation in which this velocity is indicated, and 
until we could bring the phenomena of light under 
the law of luminous undulations there would be no 
reason to suppose from that circumstance that it re- 
quired time for its transmission. But the proof that 
it required this time created a presumption, if it was 

314 



TELEPATHY 

not proof, that undulations were the cause of the 
lapse of time in the transmission, in accordance with 
known laws in vibratory phenomena, while the lapse 
of time was not an explanation of the facts but an 
evidence of their existence. Or to take a much 
simpler instance. Sunlight is the cause of vegetable 
growth, at least one of its causes, but this growth is 
not the evidence of sunlight. Other facts have 
proved to us that the sun shines and we have found in 
the progress of inquiry that the sunlight is more or 
less necessary to the growth of vegetation. 

Now when it comes to the phenomena which gave 
rise to the idea of telepathy we found a situation in 
which we had new facts not explicable by known and 
familiar causes, namely, sense perception of the nor- 
mal type. The ordinary explanation was excluded, 
but a new one was not thereby established. We 
simply found a set of facts which required some new 
cause and as we had no known process for rendering 
the facts intelligible we had to represent them as in- 
volving some causal connection, direct or indirect be- 
tween living minds, that still had to be determined. 
The facts were evidence of this, but they were not 
explained by merely coining a new term, as the pro- 
cess or causal agency was not thereby indicated. The 
term was not an explanation, nor a name for any ex- 
planation, but a name for the facts requiring a new 
cause still to be determined. 

The point of view of which telepathy is supposed 
to be a rival hypothesis is the spiritistic. Both have 
their evidential and both their explanatory functions. 
The evidence of the spiritistic theory is, not the mere 

815 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH A3SfD THE RESURRECTION 

fact of the supernormal, or facts not explicable by 
normal mental action, but in addition to the super- 
normal, it is, incidents bearing upon the personal 
identity of deceased persons. If we are to believe in 
spirits of any kind we must expect them, if they sur- 
vive, to communicate facts which besides being super- 
normal must be such as discarnate spirits would most 
naturally tell in proof of their identity. I shall not 
undertake to tell what such facts should be. I leave 
this to the reader to determine. But the evidence of 
the theory must partake of the character described 
in order to invoke an explanation which the theory 
supposes. But this evidence must exclude an alter- 
native hypothesis, and hence any phenomenon classi- 
fiable with telepathy will not be evidence of spirits 
whatever we may think of the latter's capacity for 
explaining the facts. Nothing is clearer than the 
fact that the spiritistic hypothesis is capable of ex- 
plaining a certain type of phenomena, but the funda- 
mental question is, whether it is the true explanation, 
and this requires us to obtain the evidence for it. 
Whether the hypothesis has any evidence in its sup- 
port is not the problem here, and I am not concerned 
with this issue, but with its relation to telepathy either 
as a fact or as an hypothesis. As remarked the evi- 
dence of spirit agency must be some type of facts 
illustrating personal identity and at the same time 
probably supernormal. But if such alleged evidence 
can be classified with the phenomena which are termed 
telepathic it will lose its character as proof of spirits. 
Hence, though telepathy explains nothing, it may 
limit or destroy the evidence for spirits, provided it is 

316 



TELE^ATItY 

comprehensive enough in its application to all that is 
explicable by spirit agency. It is therefore not a 
rival theory to the spiritistic in regard to explanation, 
but only in evidential matters. 

We often speak of " explaining " certain facts by 
telepathy and, in implying that they are explicable 
by the same process, this is legitimate enough way of 
speaking. But classification is never a true explana- 
tion. It only places things in allied groups and if 
the cause is previously known the explanation is im- 
plied, but if it is unknown the phenomena so classified 
remain really as unexplained as before. Telepathy 
is this sort of term. It only classifies and does not 
yet imply the process by which phenomena are pro- 
duced or made to occur. It is merely a term for plac- 
ing limitations on evidence, not a term of explanation. 

I have been using the word for the moment in its 
widest application to include all three meanings 
noticed at the outset. I have done this as a conces- 
sion for the time to the popular conception in order 
to indicate the extent of its limitations in relation to 
a supposedly rival hypothesis. But it is time to show 
still further limitation in the use of the term. I deny 
the legitimacy of the second and third meanings of 
the term. That is, I deny that there is any evidence 
of a scientific character for the mind of one person 
reading another in any such way as is implied by 
selecting incidents either from the memory of the per- 
son present or from the memories of distant and un- 
known persons. All that we can pretend to have 
scientific evidence for is the acquisition supernormally 
of the present active mental states of the agent by a 

317 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

percipient. There is a large mass of facts on record 
which answer to this conception of the matter and 
there is as yet in the scientific world no unanimity of 
opinion with regard even to this. But such as it is, 
it represents the only body of scientific evidence which 
can claim to represent some supernormal connection 
between one mind and another, and this connection in 
all but four or five incidents is synonymous with the 
present mental states of agent and percipient, the 
person whose mind is read and the person who reads 
it. The four or five incidents among the thousands 
of facts are not sufficient to justify the supposition 
that the memory is read either in these particular in- 
stances or in the whole mass of evidence, especially 
that they are referable to deferred association which, 
as we know, is a very common phenomenon in ordi- 
nary life. The overwhelming mass of facts claim- 
ing to be evidence represents present active mental 
states and whatever we may think of subliminal pro- 
cesses as possibly involved in the results it is clear that 
there is no such selective access to the mind of the 
agent by percipients as would be implied in the con- 
struction of an independent personality. The phe- 
nomena sustain an analogy with what is known in me- 
chanical processes, namely, the fact that the cause and 
effect represent present and non-selective action. It 
is this characteristic that gives the idea of telepathy 
its conceivable import. 

But the analogy or resemblance to mechanical coin- 
cidences, suggesting or proving a causal nexus, re- 
ceives a part of its interest or significance from the 
circumstance that, in mechanical phenomena, we 

318 



TELEPATHY 

know or suppose something about the nature of the 
process involved in producing the effect. Thus, when 
we strike an object, the noise produced is supposed 
to be the effect of transmitted force from the external 
object to the subject of the effect. In many types 
of phenomena the cause is supposed to be some mode 
of motion, as in the case of sound and light, or the 
transmission of motion in mechanical operations. It 
is not the mere fact that we have an antecedent and 
consequent to contemplate that satisfies us, but we 
imagine or believe that some agency in the form of 
motion is involved in the total phenomenon as ren- 
dering it intelligible and explicable. But in real or 
alleged telepathy we have no such supposition to guide 
our judgments. There is no scientific reason or evi- 
dence whatever that thought is connected with vibra- 
tions of any kind. The prevailing belief in philo- 
sophic circles is that mental phenomena are not modes 
of motion and any such assumption must render men- 
tal coincidences such as are involved in alleged telep- 
athy quite unintelligible in mechanical terms. This 
belief of philosophy may be wrong for all that I 
know. It may be that consciousness is either consti- 
tuted by or associated with vibrations or undulations 
of some kind, ethereal or material. I do not know, 
and I am willing also to say that I do not care one 
way or the other. But until there is some reason to 
believe that mental states are associated with undula- 
tory action of some kind in a way to affect their na- 
ture and relations with each other, both in the mind 
of their subject and between different minds, there 
will be no ground for identifying them closely with 

319 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

mechanical phenomena, and alleged telepathic coinci- 
dences will not be assimilable with physical facts or 
events. All that they will indicate is the fact of 
some causal relation which has yet to be determined. 
That they are associated with present active mental 
states of a certain person and the percipiency of an- 
other is the only resemblance with mechanical causes 
that they offer, and that may suffice to prove phe- 
nomena not due to chance, but it does not make them 
intelligible to physical science, at least in any such 
terms as are usually demanded of coincidences demand- 
ing explanation in the usual manner. They remain 
facts to be reckoned with, but not physically ex- 
plicable. 

In the physical world it is the present active cause 
associated with some event directly connected with it 
in time and space that gives rise to our conviction of 
a causal nexus. That is to say, we must have as evi- 
dence of a rational causal connection the coincidence 
between a consequent and an antecedent and that ante- 
cedent must be some active agency which will com- 
mend itself to our minds as the probable or necessary 
fact in the phenomena. It is not the association of 
an event with any passive set of conditions that we 
find in proximity to it, but the presence of an active 
agency that gives force to the assumed connection. 
Were it not for this fact we should probably never 
think of a cause in a particular case of antecedence 
and consequence. 

Thus a flash of lightning is followed by a clap of 
thunder. If this occurs frequently enough I am 
assured of the causal nexus. But I would naturally 

320 



TELEPATHY 



suspect it on the first occasion if the association in 
time and space were close enough, and repetition 
would only confirm the conjecture. But if the thun- 
der were to occur two or three days after the flash of 
lightning I would not suspect a causal nexus between 
them, unless I could discover a series of causally re- 
lated phenomena between the first and last experience. 
We have to get some continuous connection between a 
nearer and remoter fact in a series to justify the sup- 
position of a causal nexus. Thus when I see and hear 
the action of a locomotive whistle near by there is 
practical simultaneity or an immediate connection 
between the escape of the steam and the occurrence of 
the sound. I therefore suppose them causally related. 
But would I as easily suppose this connection if I saw 
the steam escape a mile distant and heard the sound 
some moments later? I think not. But if I have 
learned that sound requires time to transmit its vibra- 
tions to a distance I might suspect that the difference 
in time between the visual and auditory experience is 
accounted for by the difference in velocity between 
light and sound, and I could then suppose an imme- 
diate nexus between them for the point of their occur- 
rence and an apparent discrepancy at a distance. 
But I still trace the causal connection through the in- 
tervening phenomena. The evidence, however, must 
begin with spatial and temporal coincidences, and the 
causal idea associated with present active agencies. 
It is this that makes explanation possible in the 
physical world. 

It is this analogy of temporal coincidence between 
present active thoughts in agent and percipient that 

321 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

suggests a causal nexus, especially when the fact is 
related to the absence of such apparent connection 
between latent memories. The phenomena which sug- 
gest telepathy, or prove it, are coincidences between 
present mental states, and these coincidences must rep- 
resent likeness of the contents in mind. Otherwise 
there will be no reason whatever to suppose a causal 
nexus. This is a truism, but I call attention to the 
fact for the purpose of emphasizing a maxim of 
scientific procedure in the matter. This is that simi- 
larity of content and present active phenomena are 
essential to the idea of a causal relation in cases of 
alleged telepathy. If we attempt to adopt and fol- 
low any other criterion we might trace a causal con- 
nection between any of my thoughts and the similar 
thoughts of others at any time. We never attempt, 
however, to suppose that our thoughts to-day are con- 
nected either with the same thoughts others experi- 
ence at the same time, under exactly similar condi- 
tions, or with the thoughts of others like our experi- 
ence at some previous time and explicable by the or- 
dinary processes of acquiring knowledge. We have 
to exclude the ordinary access to sense perception and 
assure ourselves of an identity of thought between two 
subjects, under circumstances to suggest a direct and 
not a parallel or coincidental connection, in order to 
suspect a relation other than the normal one. 

Now the only phenomena which have suggested a 
causal nexus between mental states in different minds 
are those which show identity and temporal coinci- 
dence along with evidence that the coincidence is not 
due to similar sensory experience. There is no other 



TELEPATHY 

evidence of telepathy and until we have secured evi- 
dence of some other connection we are not entitled 
to apply the term telepathy to any other conception 
of the case. We have to define our conceptions by 
the phenomena which serve as evidence for the hypoth- 
esis concerned. If the phenomena do not show that 
likeness of kind which determines their classification 
we cannot apply the same causal explanation. Thus 
we do not apply gravitation to the phenomena of ad- 
hesion and cohesion. Neither do we confuse chemical 
affinity with any of these. We limit each of these 
causal ideas to the types of phenomena which guar- 
antee their existence. It must be the same with telep- 
athy. We have no evidence whatever that it occurs 
between the memories of an " agent " and the state- 
ments of a percipient. It is not sufficient to say or 
suppose that the fact told by the psychic is identical 
in character with the fact in the memory of the 
" agent," or conjectured " agent." There must be 
some reason to believe that memories are active causal 
agencies, and we have no evidence whatever of this. 
We have evidence that active consciousness is a causal 
agent and it is this fact which gives force to the idea 
of telepathy when identity and coincidence between 
two minds occur independently of ordinary sensory 
experience. 

I may express this perhaps in another way. I have 
indicated that telepathy when first applied to mental 
coincidences assumed the point of view that the phe- 
nomena had their interest in the hypothesis that the 
explanation began with the agent and not with the 
percipient. I have referred to the analogies with 

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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

the law of mechanics, that causal explanation started 
with the antecedent phenomenon which might be 
assumed to represent or to indicate the cause. In 
telepathic phenomena the mental state of the agent, if 
anything can be supposed to be the cause, might be 
represented as such and the percipient is the passive 
recipient of what is transmitted to him. The point 
of view for explanation in this first conception of 
causality was the antecedent thought of the agent, 
not any active function of the percipient. Telepathy 
had analogies with the ordinary phenomena of the 
transmission of force or motion. 

But in this wider import of the term it assumes 
nothing of the kind. It supposes that the percipient 
is the primary factor in the work. The point of view 
for explanation is completely reversed. Instead of 
supposing that the agent is the primary factor; that 
is, that the mind from which the information is pre- 
sumably obtained is the causal agent, the telepathy 
which explains phenomena having at least a super- 
ficial claim to a spiritistic source assumes that the 
percipient is the causal agent in the result: that is, 
instead of supposing that the mind from which the 
facts are presumably obtained is an influence in the 
result it assumes that the mind which obtains it selects 
the facts from the other. Instead of remaining by 
the conception of mechanical analogies in which the 
agent is the cause and the percipient the passive re- 
cipient of the knowledge it supposes that the per- 
cipient is the cause and the other mind the passive 
giver of the facts. That is, it assumes an intelligent, 
not a mechanical process. The relation of agent and 

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TELEPATHY 

percipient is completely reversed. In the original 
and only legitimate application of the term telepathy 
the agent was the active and the percipient the passive 
factor while the new a priori conception is that the 
percipient is the active and the agent the passive 
power in the phenomena. In addition to this general 
reversion it is noticeable that in the former the per- 
cipient is not intelligently selective, while in the lat- 
ter it is infinitely intelligent and selective. The whole 
mechanical implications of the older meaning are lost 
and abandoned. And they are abandoned without 
evidence of any kind, other than that it is not respect- 
able to accept any other view. The fact is that there 
is not a particle of scientific evidence for this wider 
meaning of the term. It is not enough to find one 
or two incidents which seem neither like what has 
passed for the older meaning of telepathy nor appears 
as evidence of transcendental agencies. Such as ap- 
pear to be neither thought transference of present 
mental states nor evidence of discarnate agencies will 
have to be multiplied in much larger quantities and 
represent much better quality than any that we have 
yet seen before we are entitled to suppose a causal 
relation between the memories of others and the super- 
normal information which mediums give us relative to 
the deceased. Before we can admit a selective telep- 
athy of any kind we shall have to give evidence 
which does not coincide with facts persistently and 
uniformly related to deceased persons. We must 
have the limitation of the facts obtained to experiences 
of living persons and not illustrative of the identity 
of deceased persons. Until that is done there can be 

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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

no scientific evidence whatever for this assumed " se- 
lective telepathy." I am not questioning the fact of 
it, but denying that there is evidence for it, and no 
man can pretend to be scientific who indulges in the 
assumption until it can produce satisfactory evidence 
for itself. The circumstance that a supernormal fact 
may not be evidence of spirits does not require us to 
explain it by telepathy. We may better say that 
we have not found the explanation than to assume 
the necessity of telepathy because the evidence is not 
for spirits. We may well express our agnosticism, 
especially that spirits might explain much which is 
not evidence of their existence, if once we have found 
consistent evidence for them. What I remarked 
earlier in this chapter holds here, namely, that the ex- 
planatory function of a theory is wider than its evi- 
dential, provided that the phenomena exhibit any 
reasonable relation to those which admit of a given 
explanation. 

Briefly, then, this selective telepathy involving in- 
telligent action of the percipient as distinct from the 
passive recipience of knowledge after mechanical 
analogies is an illegitimate extension of the term in 
so far as evidence is concerned, and science can take 
no steps without evidence. Of course such telepathy 
may be a fact, but it has no credentials at present 
and must not be permitted to usurp functions which 
never attached to the term as scientifically qualified. 
It is far better to confess ignorance. We may fool 
for a while those who are not intelligent enough to 
discover our equivocations, but we shall soon find our- 
selves in the company of those self-complacent people 

326 



TELEPATHY 

who have mistaken the nature and progress of clear 
thinking. 

All this explains why the scientific mind regards 
the popular conception of telepathy with contempt. 
If the public had limited its conception to the phe- 
nomena which claimed to be evidence of it and also 
had not assumed that the phenomena were explained 
by the term, their convictions might have received 
more respect from scientific students. But instead of 
this the general conception of telepathy is, not only 
that it explains certain facts of mental coincidence, 
but that it explains such systematic relations between 
different minds as simply subliminal and supernor- 
mal conversations of great range and complexity. It 
also assumes too readily that some process of motion 
or undulation is necessarily associated with the con- 
nection between mind and mind, or constitutes that 
connection. There is not one iota of scientific evi- 
dence for the idea. It may be legitimate speculation, 
but science is not speculation and it is not primarily 
explanation. It is first the collection of facts and 
evidence, and it may rest content with this result until 
it has reason to accept an intelligible causal agency 
after it has accumulated sufficient data to relate its 
phenomena to some systematic cause. In the present 
status of inquiry into the relation between different 
minds, it will not accept the idea that telepathy im- 
plies any reason to believe in a transcendental access 
to the memories of people at any distance by any par- 
ticular person. This is especially true when scientific 
minds are called upon to believe that the mind of some 
psychic can select as it pleases the person from whom 

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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

it shall obtain knowledge of the past and select this 
knowledge with reference to the illustration of any 
particular person living or dead. There is no scien- 
tific evidence whatever that such supernormal inter- 
communication is possible. It is an inexcusable abuse 
of the term telepathy to apply it in this manner. I 
do not believe that there is such a thing. I do not 
say that I would not believe it if the evidence were 
produced, but I must limit my belief to that for which 
I have evidence, and I deny that there is any scientific 
evidence for such a fact or process as this unlimited 
reading of minds supposes. 

Telepathy, I repeat, is acquiring present active 
mental states in a supernormal manner, and in thus 
defining it I do not imply that it is a proved fact. I 
think there is adequate evidence for its occasional oc- 
currence. But I respect the scepticism which wishes 
to have more evidence before accepting it, and 
especially do I respect the scepticism which denies 
that telepathy can filch knowledge subliminally and 
systematically from living people at pleasure. The 
process in one case is so different from that assumed 
in the other that there is no rational ground for iden- 
tifying their relation under the same term. Super- 
normal access to what I am now trying to transmit to 
the mind of another person is one thing, and it is a 
very different thing, requiring a radically distinct 
type of causal action, to systematically read human 
minds all over the world, to collect facts illustrative of 
the personality of a given person, living or dead. It 
will require a great deal of evidence to prove such a 
thing, and the evidence will have to be very different 

328 



TELEPATHY 

from that which we have in illustration of something 
supernormal, if we are to make it intelligible on any 
other hypothesis than the most superficial one. 

I must blame psychic researchers, even some who 
ought to know better, for permitting this illegitimate 
use of the term to gain currency. Too many have 
used it to blind the vision to its relation to the vari- 
ous problems we have to solve. Let me summarize. 
There has been a tendency to apply its meaning to 
phenomena which are as distant from those which it 
legitimately names and classifies as are chance coinci- 
dences or clairvoyance. The temptation to do this 
arose out of the desire to avoid admitting or tolerating 
a less respectable theory. But it must be emphasized 
that it is not an explanatory conception of any kind. 
It merely classifies a certain type of phenomena hav- 
ing some unknown cause. It does not explain any- 
thing whatever, much less that group of phenomena 
which illustrate the imitation or production in some 
supernormal manner of the personality of others, es- 
pecially the deceased. There is no longer excuse for 
the vague use of the term. It is better to admit 
frankly that we have no explanation of certain phe- 
nomena than to pretend to knowledge by using a term 
of unlimited meaning, equal to any difficulty we meet, 
in the attempt to escape a cause that is perfectly 
rational and simple. It is time to insist upon the 
only legitimate use of the term, and those who insist 
upon employing it to explain all the mysteries of men- 
tal coincidences and the reproduction supernormally 
of independent personalities, must be held responsible 
for their action, and evidence exacted of them that 

329 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

their assumption has adequate credentials. Until this 
is done no tolerance can be given to speculations based 
upon assumptions. Any and all extensions of the 
term's meaning must be accompanied by the scientific 
evidence that justifies it. We are not entitled to 
assume the larger meaning of telepathy to be a fact 
because we are not sure of its limitations. Here is 
where we have been negligent of the maxims of scien- 
tific method and the legitimate formation of convic- 
tions. We have felt reasons for accepting a causal 
connection between present active mental states and 
then, from the desire to be cautious about accepting 
some other explanation of proved supernormal phe- 
nomena, and from our ignorance of the limitations of 
communication between mind and mind, we have asked 
the question whether the memory of a subject, regard- 
less of spatial and temporal limitations, might be 
supernormally ascertained, and then from the habit of 
tolerating this as possible have jumped to the belief 
that it is a fact, without any adequate scientific evi- 
dence for it. There would have been no temptation 
to this procedure if it had been as respectable to be- 
lieve in something more intelligible. 

The mental condition which makes this tendency 
feasible and acceptable is one that follows the modern 
sceptical method which does not always distinguish be- 
tween rationality and the line of least resistance. We 
have come to think that any term which excludes, or 
supposedly excludes, the supernormal and the " super- 
natural " is a clear explanation of phenomena. The 
fact is, however, that they often explain nothing and 
are but terms for our ignorance. But the modern 

330 



TELEPATHY 

propensity for the " natural," (which does not mean 
what it once did) makes us think that any term that 
is associated with the " natural," though quite mysti- 
fying in its connotation, is a perfectly satisfactory 
explanation of facts. When we want to escape some 
perfectly clear explanation we have only to appeal to 
vibrations, telepathy, clairvoyance, etc., to assure our- 
selves a place among the wise! 

Denn eben wo Begriffe fehlen 

Da stellt ein Wort zur rechten Zeit sich ein. 

This habit was once the property of theology, but 
it seems now to have afflicted the spirit of science at 
times. But whatever it is, psychic researchers should 
be the first to correct and disillusion the popular judg- 
ment in the matter. We gain nothing by the mere 
use of words whose meaning is not clear and which 
only conceal our ignorance in the guise of a pretended 
explanation. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE NATURE OF LIFE AFTER DEATH 

A most interesting psychological phenomenon ex- 
ists in the expectations which many, perhaps nearly 
all, people entertain regarding what psychical research 
ought to accomplish if it affords any evidence of a 
future life. It is the avowal of incredulity regarding 
it on the ground that the results do not reveal the con- 
ditions of that existence, what it is like, whether it is 
one of happiness or not, what its employments, etc. I 
have seen many articles demanding information on 
these points before the existence of such a world can 
be regarded as credible. I have also talked with 
many who see the matter in no other light. Because 
we cannot tell them some idyllic story of the trans- 
cendental world, they are sceptical of the only facts 
that can possibly prove it, and virtually concede their 
willingness to believe anything impossible if we will 
only encourage them. In spite of the most careful 
explanation that such a problem as the conditions of 
an existence in another world is not the primary ques- 
tion, I find this demand for knowledge regarding them 
so widespread and so deep-seated that it may be worth 
while to examine it carefully and to show its irrational 
character from both a scientific and a moral point of 
view. 

In the first place, after all the fraud and illusion 
on the one hand, and the phenomena of secondary per- 

332 



THE NATURE OF LIFE AFTER DEATH 

sonality on the other, ordinarily intelligent men ought 
to recognize, without the necessity of being told it, 
that the first problem is one of personal identity after 
death, if any transcendental form of existence is to 
be admitted at all. The fundamental trouble is that 
most people assume another world as a foregone con- 
clusion, and they do this without one iota of evidence. 
With this taken for granted, they demand to know 
the mode of life in it. Moreover, if there be other 
conditions of existence than the material world which 
we know, there would still remain the open question 
whether any independent intelligence either possibly 
or actually existed in them. The religious belief in 
the existence of spirits counts for nothing in the prob- 
lem unless founded on some kind of adequate evidence. 
Scepticism in regard to this fundamental matter must 
be satisfied, so that materialism, or the conception of 
things for which that doctrine stands, must hold the 
field of probabilities until the evidence is sufficient to 
indicate the continuance of personal identity after 
death. That is the primary problem, whose solution 
conditions inquiry into all others. I do not say or 
imply that any adequate answer can be given to this 
question; for with that secondary personality and its 
deceptive, half -fiendish simulation of spiritistic ideas, 
and the possibilities of telepathy, whose limits no one 
can define at present, to say nothing of the ease with 
which the necessary phenomena can be fraudulently 
imitated, the task of proving identity, even in pre- 
sumably genuine phenomena, is a gigantic one, and 
until it is done scepticism regarding both the existence 
and the alleged conditions of a transcendental life and 

333 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

consciousness must be conceded its rights. Nor do 
I say that there is any hope of attaining knowledge 
of those conditions, even if it be possible to determine 
the fact of survival. This is a separate problem. 
But it is certain that if we wish to obtain any position 
making it rational to inquire as to the mode of life 
in another state of existence, we must in some way 
establish the veracity of the spirits which claim to re- 
veal themselves to us. These alleged spirits, however, 
must prove their veracity by first proving their iden- 
tity, their present and previous existence, and we may 
then reckon with their statements relative to their 
mode of life. There can be no truce with the man 
who does not see the priority of personal identity to 
all other questions of psychical research. 

I understand the disposition to ask for the condi- 
tions of another life, but I cannot grant either its in- 
telligence or its morality. Religious considerations, 
connected with poor morals and a desire for irrespon- 
sibility in conduct, have been the chief influence in 
determining this demand. Revelation, fortified by 
the poetry of Dante and Milton, to say nothing of the 
ineradicable instinct for immortality and happiness, 
has fixed men's convictions regarding the presumed 
fact of a hereafter. But materialistic scepticism and 
the progress of science since the Renaissance under- 
mined this belief, at least among the intellectual 
classes, and either loosened the springs of hope and 
morality, or offered sound moral temperaments the 
opportunity to display the virtues of stoics. But 
amid all this doubt, reluctantly entertained often even 
by the scientific in deference to the sovereignty of rea- 

334 



THE NATURE OF LIFE AFTER DEATH 

son, human instinct among the generality of men has 
been strong enough to subordinate the demand for 
evidence of the fact of a future life to the curiosity 
regarding its character. 

But I must demur to this desire for knowledge 
where it is either impossible or unverifiable when as- 
sumed to be possible. If any knowledge of the condi- 
tions of existence hereafter be possible at all, it will 
only be after the most prolonged investigation, involv- 
ing inductive material and constructive scientific the- 
ories of a high order and complexity far beyond any- 
thing seen in Copernican astronomy, Newtonian grav- 
itation, or Darwinian evolution. Personally I have 
no interest, scientific or moral, in such a question, con- 
vinced as I am of the difficulties in the way of any 
intelligible conception or evidence of such conditions. 
I must even question the morality of any interest in 
it. A man must be very conscious of what his deserts 
ought to be, or have little faith in the order of nature, 
certainly no great strength of character to withstand 
the buffets of fortune, if he raises the query regard- 
ing the consequences of his present life, or feels curi- 
ous about matters that bear no important relation to 
his present environment and duties. The limits of 
human knowledge on the one hand, and the tempta- 
tions to libertinism on the other, are such that it is 
easy for the average man to fall into the position of 
either a fool or a knave: a fool if he does not know 
and appreciate the rights of scepticism regarding 
both the fact and the nature of a transcendental world, 
and a knave if he would abolish the influences, even if 
they are not of an ideal sort, that make for some kind 

335 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

of virtue in a being who craves liberty more than he 
respects the monitions of conscience. Of this again, 
if we have time, as I must return to the main issue. 
This is the dilemma between the impossibility and the 
unverifiability of all knowledge about the mode of 
existence beyond the grave, even after we have as- 
sumed that the fact of it is proved, or* the belief in it 
justified. 

There are two arguments for this contention, which 
may be discussed at some length. They are (1) the 
impossibility of making any statements regarding an- 
other world intelligible to any ordinary human un- 
derstanding limited to sensory experience, and (2) 
the mental and other conditions under which commu- 
nications from such a world must probably take place. 

The most elementary training in psychology, or 
even the simple observation of every-day life, ought to 
teach a man the necessary difficulties in the way of un- 
derstanding any statements about another life. If 
those statements describe it in terms resembling our 
own world, we must naturally set them down as ab- 
surd. It would not be another and transcendental 
world if so described. On the other hand, if they 
describe it as different, we can neither conceive it nor 
prove it in terms of what we generally recognize as in- 
telligible. In either case accounts of it are perfectly 
worthless. We are limited in our knowledge to the ex- 
periences of the senses in so far as the data are con- 
cerned by which a world becomes intelligible. Our 
language represents the experiences of vision, hear- 
ing, touch, and the other senses to a minor degree. 
When we name a fact it is a phenomenon of these 

336 



THE NATURE OF LIFE AFTER DEATH 

senses that we name, and these experiences cannot be 
made interchangeable with each other. They are 
only associable or capable of being connected in time 
in the same consciousness. In all the higher and ab- 
stract conceptions or theoretical constructions of 
science the reference is always to data that are purely 
sensory. We picture a horse in the form in which 
it is seen, unless we are blind, when either the sound 
of its neighing or feelings of touch represent the 
meaning of the term to us. Laura Bridgeman had, 
and Helen Keller has, to identify the meaning of 
terms in experiences of touch alone. In general, then, 
things are intelligible to us only in terms of sensory 
experience, no matter how refined our conceptions 
become. 

Now unless we admit that the transcendental world 
exists in space relations like our own, and that the 
theosophical doctrine of the " astral body," which is 
described as a fac-simile of the physical body, repre- 
sents the nature of the case, and that there is a spir- 
itual universe that is the analogue of the physical, 
this world can have no sensory resemblance whatever 
to our present conditions, and so cannot be described 
in our existing language. But there is no adequate 
evidence of any " astral body " doctrine, and certainly 
the facts and significance of psychical research will 
have to be admitted if the doctrine can have even a 
plausible possibility assumed in its favor. But apart 
from this supposed analogy between the two worlds, 
we can no more expect a statement about it to be in- 
telligible than we should expect a person who had no 
sense of touch and only the sense of vision to make his 

337 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

visual experiences clear to one who had the sense of 
touch and not that of sight. We know how difficult 
it is to establish communication with the deaf and 
dumb, even with all the common points of experience 
and interest, and how additionally difficult it is to 
make certain experiences intelligible to them after the 
communication is established. In fact, it is impos- 
sible to give them an idea of an auditory world of 
sound, and only the most obscure analogies drawn 
from the experience of feeling or emotion can suggest 
to them a meaning of any kind in that sense, and this 
meaning is not in terms of sensation, but only in those 
of the emotional element common to all the senses, 
with a difference, too, for each sense. Witness the 
cases of Laura Bridgeman and Helen Keller, to whom 
I have already referred. It would naturally be the 
same with the description of a world beyond the grave. 
The " astral body " doctrine would not alter this 
statement. Whatever analogies it offers to our 
present world, they are too few and too little like ours 
in detail to help the case. Its connecting links are 
not even as useful as those between the normal man 
and the deaf, dumb, and blind. It would fail at every 
point except the one of space relations, and these seem 
also to desert it in important aspects. But without 
this conception, and in all other respects than its own 
analogy, it would be impossible to communicate any- 
thing sensible to us about the transcendental world, 
and hence, if it exists, whatever we can learn about 
it must be learned there, and not here. 

A discarnate spirit, would have some hope of estab- 
lishing its identity. This can be accomplished by re- 

338 



THE NATURE OF LIFE AFTER DEATH 

ferring to its past, not its present. Memory is the 
condition both of our sense of personal identity and of 
the proof of this identity, whether in this or any 
other life. If, then, personal identity and the sense 
of it survived the event of death, and if any possible 
conditions for communication with a terrestrial world 
occurred, a discarnate spirit could hope to prove that 
identity by reference to its past. Its language would 
be intelligible not by virtue of its present conditions 
or its reference to them, but by virtue of our knowl- 
edge of the facts on this side. The statements would 
be intelligible because they described terrestrial facts. 
But we have no assurance that the same language 
would be intelligible when applied- to the description 
of the " other side " ; on the contrary, the assurance 
is against its possibility. Besides, it is noticeable in 
the attempts, reported by various persons, to give 
such descriptions that the combination of terms is not 
that which is most natural to us in either our sensory 
or our rational experience. Secondary personality, 
of course, illustrates the same phenomenon, and were 
it not that this fact nullifies the assumption that we 
are ever really dealing with spirit communications, we 
might have in the absurd association of conceptions 
purporting to be spiritistic very good illustrations of 
the impossibility of making a transcendental world 
intelligible to our experience. But we do not need 
actual communications to prove this. It is a neces- 
sary consequence of our psychological nature, and if 
mankind were sufficiently acquainted with philosophy 
since Locke and Kant, they would take this impossi- 
bility as an axiom. We might, after a hundred years' 

339 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

investigation and accumulation of data, form some 
highly abstract ideas of such a world, but they would 
not be intelligible to mankind in general. 

When it comes to what is called empirical evidence 
for this contention it is not easy, if possible at all, to 
supply it with assurance. Empirical evidence is that 
of facts representing actual communications, but the 
extreme difficulty is that of showing them to be what 
they claim to be. Such as we have and to which we 
can appeal at all is found in the Piper case, where we 
assume that the demands of personal identity are 
probably satisfied. In my own experiments with that 
case, however, there is practically nothing illustrat- 
ing the matter at hand. 

There is another very important reason for not ac- 
cepting descriptions of the next life as intelligible. 
This is the apparent mental confusion connected with 
the communications purporting to come from spirits. 
It is evident in the content of the messages, and can 
be recognized without believing that they have a spir- 
itistic origin. 

It is worth remarking that this view of the case is 
borne out by the direct assertions of the alleged spirits 
themselves. They state that they are dazed or con- 
fused while communicating. Assuming such a con- 
fused state of mind, it would seem only natural that 
the subject should be seriously hampered in the at- 
tempt to describe its life. A semiconscious state or a 
dazed condition in our own lives is not favorable to 
an intelligible account of anything whatever that we 
have experienced. If, then, a discarnate spirit, 
assuming that it exists, becomes mentally confused 

340 



THE NATURE OF LIFE AFTER DEATH 

from the influence of the various circumstances under 
which it is necessary to communicate with us, it is ap- 
parent that there must be great difficulty in telling us 
anything at all, and especially anything intelligible 
about a transcendental world and its life. 

This brings us to the phenomena of double person- 
ality, which are now becoming quite familiar to the 
scientist, though he has, as yet, no clear explanation 
of them. The facts are definite enough. They are 
represented in somnambulism, hypnosis, certain forms 
of insanity, and cases of the lost sense of personal 
identity. They involve the suspension of normal 
consciousness or memory, so that when the normal 
consciousness returns there is no recollection of what 
has transpired during the secondary state. These 
cases often represent all the appearances of two dis- 
tinct persons, or parallel streams of consciousness in 
the same organism, though their manifestation is 
rather consecutive than simultaneous. This is the 
reason that the phenomena are called those of double 
personality, or even multiplex personality, as there 
are cases of numerous distinct streams of mental ac- 
tion. Generally the normal consciousness has no 
memory of the abnormal; and sometimes, if not gen- 
erally, the abnormal has either no memory of the nor- 
mal at all, or no apparently self-conscious recollection 
of it. The normal consciousness is called the pri- 
mary, and the abnormal the secondary or tertiary con- 
sciousness, as the case may be. Now it is the usual 
cleavage between these separate streams of activity 
that constitutes the main point of interest for us. It 
must be emphasized. 

341 



PSYCHICAL, RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

There are all grades and degrees of distinction be- 
tween the primary and secondary streams, from an in- 
termixture of their data to their absolute separation, 
the latter perhaps being the prevalent. We may 
then say that we generally find no conscious appro- 
priation of the facts of one personality by another. 
That is to say, the primary consciousness does not 
know what the secondary state experiences. This is 
perhaps all but universal, and in cases of the deeper 
secondary states the cleavage seems to be absolute. 
On the other hand, the secondary personality, if it 
appropriates the experiences of the primary conscious- 
ness and memory at all (and in some cases it does not 
seem to do so), shows no conscious knowledge of 
their origin in the primary consciousness, but recalls 
them in a fragmentary and automatic way, and indi- 
cates considerable cleavage between them. There are 
exceptions to this statement, but they do not affect 
the general rule. To illustrate this rule, a man un- 
der hypnosis may forget his own name and most of 
the facts of his normal experience and memory. He 
may recall only a few capricious incidents in his past 
life, and these wholly non-representative of his char- 
acter, and he may combine with his narrative all sorts 
of dream-like utterances, not indicative of anything 
but mental confusion. I recently hypnotized a man 
who, in this secondary condition, had completely for- 
gotten his name and age, but he recalled two facts 
which I was able to prove belonged to his normal state. 
But he could remember nothing else except the names 
of some of his companions, and these had been asso- 
ciated with his dazed condition after an accident in 

342 



THE NATURE OF LIFE AFTER DEATH 

which he lost normal consciousness. Yet he could 
talk about things that he said took place a thousand 
years ago, and which demonstrably did not take place 
then, but which possibly had been partly experienced 
in his normal condition. The cleavage between the 
two personalities in this case was almost as great as 
between two different persons whose individual streams 
of consciousness never interpenetrate, even when telep- 
athy may be supposed to suggest such interpenetra- 
tion. 

Now if we suppose that a discarnate spirit has to 
assume an abnormal and secondary condition like 
hypnosis, somnambulism, or subliminal mentality, we 
may easily understand two probable effects that might 
follow, after what has just been said. They are (1) 
confusion and triviality in the messages delivered, and 
this wholly independent of the disturbing influence of 
conditions external to the communicating mind and 
supposed to exist between the terrestrial and tran- 
scendental worlds, and (2) separation from a clear 
knowledge of the normal life and consciousness on 
the " other side." The condition necessary for com- 
munications of any sort may be that rare state be- 
tween total unconsciousness in which no messages can 
be given, and that normal spiritual state in which 
also no messages may be given, so far as we know. 
It may be a state in which the subject is wholly un- 
conscious of its normal life beyond and conscious only 
of its past, and even of this only in the fragmentary 
way of secondary personality. Or it may be a state 
in which the subject may be partly conscious of its 
normal life beyond and also partly conscious of its 

343 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

past. In one of the cases we should get nothing 
whatever of the life on the " other side," and in the 
other too little to be intelligible, even if we were quali- 
fied to understand it when correctly reported. It is 
also not only possible, but it is most natural psycho- 
logically considered, that contact with terrestrial con- 
ditions should suggest terrestrial memories. This, 
however, would be truer at first than afterwards. But 
the existence of a secondary state as a condition of 
communicating would follow known analogies if it cut 
the communicator off more or less from the tran- 
scendental life and its experiences. So much for the 
possibilities. 

Have we, however, any evidence that a secondary 
or confused state of mind exists in the act of commu- 
nicating ? The answer to this question, of course, de- 
pends on our first having satisfied the demands of per- 
sonal identity. If the difficulties proposed in the 
Piper phenomena by a combination of telepathy and 
secondary personality have been sufficiently overcome, 
we may suppose that the identity of deceased persons 
has been satisfactorily established. Assuming this 
for the purpose of the present argument, I can reply 
to the above question with an affirmative. This evi- 
dence of a confused state of mind is often not only 
clearly indicated by the messages, but is also as often 
connected with peculiar traces of important facts in 
the midst of much confusion. 

There are two kinds of evidence for this confusion. 
They are, first, the internal character of the commu- 
nications, and second, the direct statements of the 
communicators. The most important illustration of 

344 



THE NATURE OF LIFE AFTER DEATH 

the first type is the condition of things which seems 
to necessitate an alternation of communicators. A 
communicator can stay but a short time. What the 
exact cause of this is we do not know. But it is an in- 
variable fact, and the character of the communication 
at the termination of one of these periods often runs 
off into great confusion and dreamy nonsense, like the 
drivel of secondary personality. This is very prettily 
illustrated in one of my own sittings, where the com- 
municator twice exclaimed (so to speak, as the mes- 
sage came in automatic writing), " Give me my hat," 
just as he left off communicating. This language 
had no connection with the rest of the communica- 
tions, but, strange enough, my inquiries brought out 
accidentally that the communicator in life was accus- 
tomed to use this very expression in situations like 
this when suddenly called to go out-of-doors. Here 
we apparently have a secondary state suddenly ap- 
proaching syncope, so to speak, and the psychological 
situation elicits automatically, by ordinary associa- 
tion, the very phrase which the person was accus- 
tomed to utter in partly similar circumstances in life. 

On another occasion this same communicator told 
me a story about a fire that had once given him a 
fright, and described the case so extravagantly that I 
considered it false. This was early in my experi- 
ments. Much later he recurred to the same incident 
spontaneously, and told it in more sober terms, re- 
marking that he was often confused when trying to 
tell me facts. 

In the attempt to get my step-mother's name rightly 
a singular incident took place. Her name had been 

345 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

given wrongly in all communications regarding her 
until I discovered what was probably intended, and 
asked for the right one. It had been confused with 
that of my aunt Nannie, the right name being 
Maggie. It was first given Mannie and then Nannie. 
In the effort to give it rightly, after I had asked for 
it, the communicator recognized very clearly his dif- 
ficulties and confusion, and in the attempt to explain 
why it had occurred, said : " Help me. Oh, help me 
to recall what I so longed to say. My own mother 
Nannie. I — Wait. I will go for a moment." 
Now his own mother's name was not Nannie. It was 
Margaret, and the same as that of my step-mother. 
But Nannie was the name of his sister, and was the 
name with which he had confused that of my step- 
mother, as indicated above. A little later the com- 
municator explained that in this attempt to straighten 
out the confusion he thought of his own mother and 
sister at the same time. This confusion is a very 
pretty illustration and evidence of the mental dif- 
ficulties under which discarnate spirits apparently 
labor in their attempts to make themselves intelligible. 
It is possible, however, that at times the confusion is 
due to the rapidity of thought in comparison with 
the greater slowness of the writing. We know that 
our thoughts flow more rapidly than we can write 
them, and that we have to make an effort to control 
their movement in the interest of our writing. I have 
no doubt that the discrepancy at times is due to this 
or an analogous phenomenon. But quite often it is 
a different mental condition altogether. 

On one occasion, for instance, in illustration of a 
346 



THE NATURE OF LIFE AFTER DEATH 

disturbed consciousness, my uncle in trying to com- 
municate lost completely the sense of personal iden- 
tity, and had to cease his attempts, when my father 
(I use the spiritistic lingo for clearness) suddenly 
appeared with the half -humorous remark, " Yes, 
Hyslop, I know who I am, and Annie too," the latter 
being the name of my deceased sister. 

Take another instance. My father said, after ap- 
parently mentioning my step-mother : " And yet I 
am thinking of F** [asterisks mean that the rest of 
the name could not be deciphered in the original 
automatic writing] and my visit to him. I mean your 
brother . . . [pause] brother . . . Hear 
it? Annie ... I want to help father to re- 
member everything, because I came here first and long 
ago." 

Now my sister had died in 1864 and my father in 
1896. F is the initial of my brother Frank. My 
father never paid a visit to him, but he, together with 
my step-mother, made a visit to friends in Pennsyl- 
vania with my brother Frank in 1873. 

In the matter of testimony to this confusion the 
illustrations are quite as interesting. Apropos of the 
possible rapidity of thought as a disturbing influence, 
after mentioning the name of an old favorite horse 
in the family, my father suddenly changed to some- 
thing else to which there is no clew as to what was 
intended, and said : " I am thinking about it now, 
and everything I ever knew, I believe, because my 
mind travels so fast, and I try to get away from the 
rest as much as possible. I think of twenty things 
all at once." After some further confused references 

347 



3PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

he remarked, " Ah, James, do not, my son, think I am 
degenerating because I am disturbed in thinking over 
my earthly life, but if you will wait for me I will 
remember all, everything I used to know." Over and 
over again he asserts that he is confused when trying 
to communicate, and several times remarks that when 
he is not communicating his memory is clear. In fa- 
vor of this is the fact that often clear messages are 
sent just as Mrs. Piper returns to her normal con- 
sciousness, as if this could be done at an opportune 
moment just before the conditions disappear that 
make it possible, and while the communicator is far 
enough from the ordinary conditions of the trance to 
maintain a better mental equilibrium. 

One more illustration. In allusion to some com- 
munications at sittings much earlier, my father said: 
" I am here, and I am thinking over the things I said 
when I was confused. Do you remember of my tell- 
ing you I thought it possible that we might live else- 
where? But to speak was doubtful, very. . 
Ah, yes, we do speak, although vaguely at times. 
Ah, but we ... at best ... we do. 
. What is on my mind at present is the condi- 
tions which help me to return." This is one little in- 
cident among a number of others more evidential and 
connected with several conversations with my father on 
the subject of spirit return, and in which I doubted 
the possibility of any such thing as communications. 
The reader can see for himself both the confusion and 
the evident consciousness of the communicator that he 
suffers from it. 

• There is much interesting testimony in Dr. Hodg- 

348 



the Mature of life after death 

son's sittings bearing on the same question. The 
reader can determine for himself by reading Dr. 
Hodgson's report the numerous instances of this men- 
tal confusion as evidenced by the contents of the mes- 
sages. I shall here limit myself to a few testimonial 
illustrations of the confusion as given by some of the 
communicators. George Pelham (pseudonym), who 
died in 1892, and who succeeded in establishing his 
identity sufficiently to quote his statements, remarked 
on one occasion to Dr. Hodgson, " Do not talk too 
fast, because I am in a daze, so to speak." On an- 
other occasion he explained to Dr. Hodgson at some 
length the condition of mind in which he had to get in 
order to communicate. 

" Remember we have, and always shall have our 
friends, in the dream life — i. e., your life, so to 
speak — which will attract us forever and forever, and 
so long as we have any friends sleeping in the ma- 
terial world; you to us are more as we understand 
sleep, you look shut up as one in prison, and in order 
for us to get into communication with you, we have 
to enter into your sphere, as one like yourself asleep. 
This is just why we make mistakes, as you call them, 
or get confused and muddled, so to put it, H. You 
see I am more awake than asleep, yet I cannot come 
just as I am in reality, independently of the medium's 
light." 

The reader must remark the use of the word 
" sleep " in this passage, apparently indicating that 
the communicator was at a loss to describe the condi- 
tion of his mind when communicating. We know 
that hypnosis in some conditions and respects resem- 

349 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

bles sleep, and that sleep is a natural analogy of it, 
often perhaps more favorable to the establishment of 
a connection with the normal consciousness than hyp- 
nosis. But aside from all technical comparison be- 
tween the two states, we have in this communication 
of George Pelham a recognition of a fact which we 
might possibly infer from the contents of many com- 
munications. Direct testimony in this instance coin- 
cides with the inference that we should most naturally 
make from the character of the data. 

Another communicator remarked to Dr. Hodgson, 
" I am a little dull, H., in the head " ; and on another 
occasion, while saying something about a cigar-case 
for the purpose of proving his identity, suddenly said, 
" Am I dreaming? " as if aware of the confused and 
dream-like drift of consciousness in the act of com- 
munication. 

But one of the most interesting testimonies to the 
position here advanced is rather indirect, and at the 
same time affords some evidence of the spiritistic the- 
ory of the phenomena. What I have already quoted 
can hardly claim this character. But a friend of 
this George Pelham, deceased and purporting to com- 
municate with him through Mrs. Piper, was the sitter. 
He is called Mr. Hart in the report. This Mr. Hart 
was much puzzled with the confusion in the com- 
munications and the evidence of an apparently de- 
generating personality, if he had to suppose that 
he was dealing with his friend George Pelham. But 
not long after his sittings this Mr. Hart himself died 
in Paris, and soon turned up to communicate, and 
found that he could not succeed so well as his friend 

350 



THE NATURE OF LIFE AFTER DEATH 

George Pelham had done, and on one occasion indi- 
cated some aggrievance because he did not have the 
opportunity to communicate so often as he wished. 
He said : " What in the world is the reason you 
never call for me? I am not sleeping. I wish to 
help you in identifying myself. I am a good deal 
better now." (Dr. Hodgson: "You were confused 
at first.") " Very, but I did not really understand 
how confused I was. It was more so — I am more 
so when I try to speak to you. I understand now 
why George spelled his words to me." 

Mr. Hart had to learn on the " other side " the 
facts which explained the former confusion of George 
Pelham, and the incident here crops out as an interest- 
ing piece of evidence for personal identity, while 
it attests the fact of mental confusion in the act of 
communication. 

Evidence of this sort could be multiplied almost in- 
definitely, but this is sufficient to illustrate my point. 
Now if the cleavage between the normal consciousness 
of a discarnate spirit and its condition necessary for 
communicating is like the cleavage between primary 
and secondary personality, even though it is not al- 
ways so great, we can readily understand both the 
dearth of material reflecting the conditions of life in 
the transcendental world and the return of the per- 
son's consciousness to terrestrial memories, and also 
the tendency to trivial recollections, as this latter fea- 
ture is characteristic of all disturbed consciousness. 



351 



CHAPTER XII 

PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

Serious discussions of the resurrection, as described 
in the New Testament, have almost passed out of no- 
tice, even in the field of theology. In my early life 
and during my college education, it received attention 
in apologetics. But since that time the subject has 
almost disappeared from intelligent interest. Lecky's 
verdict on Miracles seems to apply to this topic, and 
indeed includes it. Nothing can be clearer in the 
biblical literature of the past, including the New Tes- 
tament, than the important and central place occupied 
by the story of the resurrection. The whole fabric of 
Christianity rested upon its integrity, whatever inter- 
pretation was placed upon it, at least for the rational 
theory of the system. This is as true for Roman- 
ism as for Protestantism. Both made the Christian 
system depend on the validity of the incidents com- 
prised in the idea of the resurrection, because it is evi- 
dent that the immortality of the soul was the key-note 
of the religion which supplanted Paganism and Ma- 
terialism. But gradually science undermined this be- 
lief as it has many others, and often religion, to save 
itself or some of its social and spiritual ideals, palters 
with the word and escapes the duty of stating itself 
frankly and honestly on the issue which defines its 
own authority. 

I do not here either assert or deny the importance 
352 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

of the doctrine which so engrossed the human mind 
during the centuries preceding the triumph of phy- 
sical science. I am not reviving dead controversies, 
but stating the facts and tendencies of history. It 
may not be important either to believe or to deny the 
story of the resurrection. Many will still think it 
important to hold and defend that belief. I do not af- 
firm or deny this. All that is important here to 
remark is the place which it once had in the deter- 
mination of human allegiance to religion, at least 
the Christian religion. That it was the central is- 
sue in the validity of Christianity for long cen- 
turies will hardly be questioned, and was ap- 
parently made so by those who saw no reason to ac- 
cept that religion, unless the integrity of the belief 
in the resurrection could be sustained. But it is as 
clear to all intelligent men to-day that the doctrine 
either has no such important place or is evanescent, 
if not actually dead. What the logical mind has to 
ask in the face of such an admitted fact is, what basis 
can the system have which made its ideals and hopes 
rest upon a belief which is now no longer accepted? 
There can be no doubt that the plainest interpre- 
tation of the New Testament is that the resurrection 
was intended to mean that of the physical body, at 
least in the application of it to Christ. The doc- 
trine of St. Paul for the human race at death was 
most probably applied to the " spiritual " and not to 
the physical body. But the clearest import of the 
New Testament teaching regarding Christ was that 
his body arose from the dead after the crucifixion 
and was seen as in life by his disciples and others. 

353 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

The most natural inference from this was that the 
resurrection of others, at the day of judgment, would 
be that of the body. We know how the ages came to 
believe in that view, and it does not matter for us 
at this day whether the interpretation was correct or 
not. In the definition which the belief received 
through the process of discussion afterward we have 
the issue which thinking minds had to meet, and this 
was that the immortality of the soul was conditioned 
on the resurrection of the physical body which it had 
inhabited during its natural life. The interpretation 
of New Testament doctrine which led to this view 
did not assume that there was any source of natural 
error in the accounts of Christ's resurrection. Va- 
rious influences tended to suppress inquiry into the 
nature of biblical authority on such matters, or to 
prevent revision of the narratives on which it was 
founded. That the reporters were honest in their 
statements was either taken for granted or made evi- 
dent by the accounts themselves, and that they were 
honest will be admitted by all who are familiar with 
the records, or the evidence, such as it is. But there 
was no disposition to reckon with other difficulties 
than the honesty of informants. That there should 
be mal-observation, illusion, and unconscious distor- 
tion of the facts, and imperfections of record, in the 
accounts was not sufficiently appreciated by early 
students of the narratives, and hence it was supposed 
that we had adequate data for accepting the story of 
the resurrection in its literal form. 

It was more natural until the 17th century to ac- 
cept the possibility of a resurrection than since the 

354 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

revival of science. We must remember that the be- 
lief in its possibility was supported by the theistic in- 
terpretation of the world. This view of the cosmos 
was a definite denial of the fundamental assumption 
of Greek philosophy in its later period. This as- 
sumption was the eternity of matter. Early Greek 
thought admitted the created nature of the world as 
we knew it in sense perception. That is, the sensible 
universe was believed to have been formed in some way, 
whether by an intelligent agency or the fortuitous 
combination of elements. Wherever the elements were 
assumed they were supposed to be permanent or eter- 
nal. The Epicurean school laid great emphasis upon 
this and it was the dominant point of view at the time 
of the Christian era. In its opposition to this view, 
Christian theology had two alternatives before it. 
(1) It could rely upon the argument of design to 
show that the order of the sensible cosmos was not 
due to chance, but to intelligent arrangement. This 
was practically the position of Plato and others. The 
eternity and uncreated nature of the elements so ar- 
ranged was granted. The function of a deity was 
not creation but the orderly arrangement of things, 
in this view of the world. (2) It could extend the 
idea of power to the creation of the very elements 
as well as the sensible order of things. It could hold 
that all matter, whether sensible or supersensible, was 
created. This latter alternative was the one taken, 
and it had the advantage of displacing matter by an- 
other principle as the eternal basis of things. The 
conception that matter was ephemeral or phenomenal, 
whether in its sensible or supersensible form, placed 

355 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

spirit in the position of the physical as the permanent 
background of the world. Spirit, not matter, be- 
came the eternal, and as personality or intelligence 
was the essential characteristic of spirit, there was no 
difficulty in supposing it capable of recreating the 
body at the end of the world as it was assumed to 
have created it for this life. Every conception which 
would endow the new point of view with probability 
was found in the doctrine of the theism, namely, intel- 
ligence, power, and morality. That the source of 
things was personal made it probable that its end 
would be, and immortality followed as a natural se- 
quence. The respect and worship which the divine 
received was a surety that its character could be 
trusted to fulfill hope and aspiration. Deity had 
to fulfill the hopes it had inspired, as a condition of 
retaining the character and reverence which it had 
received. Spiritual life was not any longer at the 
mercy of the " elements." It had its own basis and 
was not dependent on the contingencies of material 
embodiment for its existence or destiny. It had a 
supposed sub j ect placed on a basis as well guaranteed 
,as any other fact. 

The consequence was that, during all the centuries 
until the revival of science, the theistic point of view 
had full sway and it was easy to believe in the possi- 
bility of a physical resurrection. The reverence for 
the past and the exaltation of authority strengthened 
this wider view, and men no more questioned, or could 
question, the possibility of a bodily survival or resur- 
rection than they could the existence of an absolute, 
and it was natural to add the fact of it to the concep- 

356 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

tions which they took of the order of creation. The 
plain interpretation of the Bible had nothing offensive 
in it, because it did not contradict the fundamental 
theory of the universe. The order of things was not 
conceived as an inexorable fate without intelligence, 
but as an intelligent and ethical order, and such a view 
carried with it every possibility which was found in the 
basic doctrine of creation and providence. 

But all this was changed by the revival of learning 
with its reinstatement of Greek ideals and philosophy. 
The direct study of nature supplanted the dependence 
on authority and reverence for the past. Each indi- 
vidual felt the desire and the power to judge of na- 
ture for himself. The meager accounts of the world 
that came from priestcraft and superstition did not 
satisfy, and the emancipated human intellect sprang 
with unbounded enthusiasm into the new field of in- 
terest. Almost the first step in its inquiry resulted 
in the indestructibility of matter and the conservation 
of energy. These apparently undermined the funda- 
mental position of theism. Theology had enjoyed 
perfect immunity in its claims as long as it could 
maintain the ephemeral nature of matter and the per- 
manent character of spirit. But the moment that 
matter became the permanent substratum of things 
again there were two claimants for the throne of 
the universe, and just to the extent to which the hu- 
man mind feels confidence in the ultimate unity of the 
cosmos, as against what is called a dualistic interpre- 
tation of it, to that extent will belief accept any the- 
ory which makes its claims of unity good. Now the 
indestructibility of matter and the conservation of 

357 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

energy were accepted as indubitably proved. This 
proof came in the determination of certain indubita- 
ble facts, and the speculative doctrines of theology 
were based upon assumptions which were not experi- 
mentally supported, and with experiment as the new 
test of truth the way was clear for science as op- 
posed to theology. Matter again became the eternal 
and spirit the ephemeral concomitant of it, a func- 
tion of matter, not its director or creator. The 
change in the point of view was absolute and the ul- 
timate consequences inevitable. Consciousness, in- 
stead of being the function of a soul which was not 
dependent on matter for its existence, became the ac- 
companiment or accident of material compounds. 
Spirit became the phenomenal thing, or at least had 
its claims to support upon an entirely different basis. 
The body became the first condition of its existence, 
that is, of consciousness and hence any doctrine of the 
resurrection had to rely upon the assumption that 
the bodily organism would be revived in some way, 
if personal life were possible beyond the grave. 

Everything in the new philosophy tended to dis- 
pute the possibility of survival, and especially the 
restoration of the bodily organism. The law of the 
world was one of constancy, not the action of a free 
will. All that observation showed was a succession 
of species, not the permanence of the individual, and 
physiology added its evidence to the dependence of 
consciousness on the body with no hope that the same 
basis for consciousness could be reinstated, in the 
absence of a divine agency whose existence seemed 
not to be required in the new system. The confidence 

358 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

in the constancy of nature, which was a fixed and in- 
variable order, and the absence of evidence of a posi- 
tive kind that consciousness could survive bodily con- 
ditions, conspired to give scepticism its triumph. In- 
telligent men thought they could not any longer main- 
tain the immortality of the soul on the ground that 
the story of the physical resurrection was true. The 
original attack on Greek materialism had been made on 
this alleged fact, and then, when such phenomena 
had not been repeated, philosophy had to fall back 
upon a system of theism to support the probability 
of its hopes. But when the theistic interpretation of 
nature lost its main basis, namely, the phenomenal 
character of matter, everything depending on this 
fundamental postulate had its integrity attacked to 
the same extent. The belief in the original allega- 
tions, besides the loss of its basic assumptions about 
matter, had to contend with the demands for ordi- 
nary scientific evidence. There was no way to save 
the story of the resurrection from the antecedent prob- 
abilities of the new theory of matter, and whatever 
allegiance it retained in spite of the progress of 
physical science, it had to meet the criterion which 
science imposes on every conviction, namely, that it 
supply present evidence for its contention. 

I need not dwell on the logical tendencies of the 
mind when it has to accept the doubtfulness of the 
facts on which its most important ideals and hopes 
have been based. The doctrine of immortality had 
founded a new civilization and supported all its ethi- 
cal and political ideals, and this immortality had been 
based upon the theory of the resurrection, which 

359 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

claimed to find its defence in a philosophical scheme 
of the universe, but which, traced to its historical 
source, depended wholly upon the integrity of the 
story of Christ's bodily resurrection, as that had been 
interpreted. But science was not in the habit of mak- 
ing a large theory of things dependent on an isolated 
event. Such phenomena might be a ground for pause 
or investigation, but not for a reconstruction of the 
cosmos. But when it came to the assertion of human 
immortality on the ground that a single instance of 
bodily resurrection had been alleged, especially in the 
period that marked the dissolution of Greco-Roman 
society when ignorance and superstition were so rife, 
it was hardly to be expected that the confidence in 
scientific method would be shaken by such a story. 
It makes no difference what the facts were. The 
point we are making is the habit of the human 
mind in the use of its established laws of nature. In 
all our daily life we have to regulate belief and ac- 
tion by the constancy of nature, even though we may 
be obliged ultimately to investigate the ground of this 
constancy. But having found that this constancy 
shut out the occurrence of resurrection as a law of the 
natural order, there was nothing left but scepticism 
for isolated events not apparently consistent with 
human experience. With this went every conclusion 
which had rested on the original belief, and the doc- 
trine of a physical resurrection easily became a relic 
of the past, a belief which science could not sustain. 
There would be no special interest in the mere fact 
of Christ's resurrection, whether bodily or otherwise. 
Science might ask why such an exceptional event 

360 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

took place. But it would have no other interest in 
it. The chief interest attaching to it was the mean- 
ing applied to its occurrence. This was its refuta- 
tion of the Epicurean materialism and the implica- 
tion of survival after death. Hence it was its relation 
to the doctrine of immortality, as we well know, that 
gave the alleged fact all its interest and importance. 
No one would care a penny whether the incident 
was true or false, unless certain other interests were 
associated with it, and all apologetics had made the 
belief in a future life to hinge upon this single in- 
stance of resurrection as against the universal obser- 
vation that bodies perished. The consequence was 
that immortality, in losing its basis, lost the confidence 
which had been reposed in it as an ethico-political be- 
lief. It became a secondary matter in the construc- 
tion of life and its ideals. The economal and materi- 
alistic view supplanted it, and we are to-day living 
in the atmosphere of that changed point of view. 
The reaction has set in and has not yet reached its 
full development. It refuses to construct the universe 
upon exceptional phenomena unless they can be 
shown to have a law of their own. It doubts the oc- 
currence of merely isolated events and seeks to find 
their repetition, even though they be more or less 
sporadic. Hence unless the doctrine of a future life 
can secure credentials in the evidence of present oc- 
currences proving it, the belief takes an unsupported 
place in the system of human convictions, and must 
suffer the destiny of all beliefs which cannot claim the 
defence of reason and general experience. 

I repeat that it does not matter whether New Tes- 
361 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

tament facts and statements have been misinterpreted. 
The heritage of human belief was a doctrine of the 
bodily resurrection, and we have to face that claim 
whatever the original belief may have been, or what- 
ever the real facts were. Hence clear thinking re- 
quires us to clearly affirm or deny the doctrine of a 
physical resurrection as a condition of a future life. 
There can be no doubt that in all intellectual minds 
scepticism has taken the place of belief and all efforts 
to sustain that belief has the whole weight of science 
to contend with and can never do more than sophisti- 
cate men who are not familiar with the problems of 
thought. 

But while we cannot accept the proverbial story of 
the resurrection from the point of view of science, 
there may be a view of it which will bear scrutiny and 
which would have all the meaning that history and 
tradition have attached to it. But this will not be ap- 
parent until we have seen the antecedent concep- 
tions which led up to the story. This new interpreta- 
tion of the facts is the result of the light which psy- 
chic research throws on the past. It would hardly 
have been suspected but for this new point of view, 
and it has had sufficient influence on the mind of a man 
like Mr. Frederick W. H. Myers to induce him to say 
in his work on Human Personality and its Survival of 
Bodily Death, perhaps with more confidence than 
the circumstances permitted, but yet with some in- 
sight into the modified tendencies of the present day 
interest in the problem, that within a century all 
reasonable men would believe in the resurrection of 
Christ. Whatever view the future takes of it, how- 

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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

ever, the philosophic conceptions of the Greco-Roman 
period will have to be taken into account when inter- 
preting it, and also the phenomena which recent years 
have reinstated in human interest but which the period 
between the present and primitive Christianity came 
to be disregarded for lack of methods and criteria for 
determining their value. 

If we wish to understand how the idea of the resur- 
rection became distorted we have only to look at the 
general variation between philosophic and common 
minds in regard to the same events at any time. The 
uneducated man to-day represents things in a man- 
ner which will not bear investigation in the light of 
science, though he actually has an important fact or 
truth at the basis of his conceptions. We are all too 
familiar with this to make more than a cursory men- 
tion of it here and I leave the matter to readers for il- 
lustration in their own experience. I wish to lay the 
stress of this aspect of the matter before us on the 
relation between the current philosophic conceptions 
at the time of Christ and the story of the resurrec- 
tion. To make this clear we must briefly indicate the 
general trend of Greek thought which had deter- 
mined the conceptions against which Christianity was 
a protest, especially the materialism of the Epicu- 
reans. 

The Greek had a genius for the enjoyment of na- 
ture. So much so that all his pessimism, when it dis- 
played itself at all, was the reflection of the transitory 
character of life or the limitations under which his 
coveted joys had to be obtained. This " nature " 
which attracted him so much, aesthetically and other- 

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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

wise, was the sensible world, the world of sense per- 
ception. It was only when he began to reflect philo- 
sophically upon it that he discovered something trans- 
cending sense perception. But he did not know ex- 
actly how to express his new point of view and could 
not always escape the prevalent conceptions of the 
race in his attempts to describe it while, he satisfied 
the instincts of that race. The controversy between 
Heraclitus and the Eleatics was the first effort to give 
the opposition between these two points of view defi- 
nite expression. We need not dwell upon it here. 
But it divided, or originated the division of Greek 
thinkers, into two fundamental schools, those who un- 
dertook to judge of things from the point of view 
of sense perception and those who adjudged from the 
point of view of reason or inner principles. One ter- 
minated in Epicureanism and the other in Platonism. 
For a moment Plato combined the two speculative ten- 
dencies, that of the Eleatics and Heraclitus, and in 
spite of some decided points of antithesis to the ma- 
terialists, sympathized with them in more than he is 
usually supposed to have done. 

Both the idealists and the materialists of the time 
departed from sense perception to seek and find the 
basic cause of things, even though they had to rely 
on some of the conceptions of sense to make their prin- 
ciples intelligible. The idealists, however, tried more 
earnestly to transcend the conceptions of sense to de- 
termine the nature of their causal principles, and never 
made themselves perfectly clear regarding the question 
whether the world was to be interpreted by efficient or 
by material or constitutive causes. This aside is in- 

364 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

volving too much metaphysics, the main point is to 
understand that the real distinction between the two 
schools was just in this different point of view, one of 
them being influenced by the desire for material 
causes, or the elements out of which the world and all 
sensible reality were made, and the other by the de- 
sire for the efficient cause which was intrumental in 
collocating these elements. 

The first simple attempts to explain things were 
based on the idea that they were composed of ele- 
ments. Of these there were four, earth, air, fire, and 
water. Early thinkers thought they could find four 
primitive substances which were combined and modi- 
fied to constitute the nature of the whole visible world. 
This view gradually developed into the atomic theory 
which made the elements infinite in number, though 
of the same kind. Such a view assumed at once that 
there was a great difference between the appearance 
of complexity and multiplicity of things and the 
real simplicity of them. The rich complexity of the 
world was phenomenal and transcient, the simple ele- 
ments were permanent and eternal. All the complex- 
ity of nature was due to the accidents of combina- 
tion, not to the inherent nature of the things that 
were permanent. When then the elements or atoms 
became all of one kind and indefinite in number, it was 
apparent that there were very few qualities which 
would remain permanent in the scheme of reality. 
Everything but matter was transient and phenomenal, 
and this matter was not accessible to the senses. The 
sensible world was a phantasm, an illusion, an appear- 
ance, anything but eternal, and hence directly op- 

365 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

posed in its character to the material elements out of 
which it was composed or which in some way managed 
to throw up on the surface of its evolution the evanes- 
cent forms of things seen. Consciousness in such a 
philosophy would be a mere function of compounds 
which had none of it in their elements. Conscious- 
ness and personality would be accidents of composi- 
tion, phenomenal consequences of interaction like di- 
gestion, circulation, and if I may take a physical anal- 
ogy, comparable to eddies and whirlpools in the con- 
fluence of two streams. Hence the school dominated 
by this philosophy consistently denied the persistence 
of personality after death. 

The idealists, while they could not combat the ex- 
istence or supposition of elements constituting the 
transcendental basis of things, were not satisfied with 
the explanation of their composition in fortuitious 
combinations. They had a strong leaning for some 
kind of directing cause, though they seldom reached 
the theistic conception of that agency. Plato and 
Aristotle affirmed it with Anaxagoras and Socrates, 
but they did not escape the sense of transiency in 
things, and even Plato's immortality of the soul was 
nonpersonal, unless we accept occasional temptations 
on his part to recognize facts which ran athwart the 
main premises and conclusions of his philosophy. 
The fundamental feature of his philosophy obliged 
him to conceive his immortality in the same terms as 
the modern doctrine of the conservation of energy 
and conceive the indestructibility of matter as the per- 
manence of motion and substance. He endeavored 
wholly to transcend sense perception in his treatment 

366 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

of " ideas," but the permanent with him was a re- 
currence of the same elements or properties in suc- 
cessive types of reality, not the persistence of iden- 
tity of the same individual. Similarity, which re- 
flected a permanent reality behind it, was the basis of 
his idea of the eternal, not the persistence of the 
same thing. Hence he would have agreed, at least in 
his main philosophy, with the materialists that the 
personality which we know in the present form of our 
existence was perishable. It was only in moments of 
sympathy with abnormal phenomena that he came to 
consider the possibilities of survival after death, but 
these moods never worked their way into metaphysi- 
cal clearness or to a point where they would traverse 
his main philosophy. It was his ethical idealism that 
kept him in the eyes of the great and sympathetic 
minds of subsequent ages, and only his language on 
immortality, associated with the general instincts of 
the human race, availed to attach Christian philos- 
ophy to him and his metaphysics. Besides Platon- 
ism developed into a form which excited no special 
interest in that age. Neo-Platonism was either unin- 
telligible or so in conflict with the prevailing ten- 
dencies of the age, as well as with the pleasure lov- 
ing instincts of the Greeks and the latter day Ro- 
mans, that it offered no attractive rallying point for 
the ethical minds of the time. It was too ascetic and 
too far removed in its conceptions from the view of 
nature which the scientific spirit of the day reflected. 
Hence in that declining period the materialist easily 
won the credence and interest of speculative tempera- 
ments. 

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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

But there was a feature of Epicureanism and ma- 
terialistic ideas that was the starting point of their 
undoing. The main theory of the school, as I have 
said, was that all things were composed of atoms which 
combined in a manner to give rise to various phenom- 
enal manifestations that disappeared with the disso- 
lution of the compounds. When it came to their inter- 
pretation of consciousness they most naturally would 
make it an accident of the organism. But in con- 
tradiction with this view they did nothing of the kind. 
It remained for the later materialism to develop itself 
into a more consistent view. The Epicureans did not 
wholly escape the natural assumption of Greek 
thought that consciousness was so different from other 
functional phenomena that it required a subject of its 
own. Hence for various reasons they admitted the 
existence of a soul concomitant with the physical or- 
ganism and inhabiting it, but denied its immortality. 
The Epicureans held that the soul was an organism 
of very fine matter. This fine matter was sometimes 
called " ether " by them. It was not the ether of 
modern science, but a more refined form of matter 
than the senses could perceive. But instead of main- 
taining that this etherial soul survived death, which 
they might well have done from their assumption 
of the permanence of substance, they affirmed its 
perishable nature. The point of consistency in this 
denial of its persistence was in the assumption of its 
complex character. The Greeks believed the essen- 
tially perishable nature of all compounds and assum- 
ing the compound nature of the soul they would log- 
ically make it phenomenal, and so they did. They 

368 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

had no evidence of this outcome but their a priori 
theory of the very nature of things as complex. All 
that they had evidence for was the transient character 
of things sensible. As these were supposedly complex 
they made complexity convertible with transiency, 
when their evidence did not take them beyond sensi- 
ble things for this phenomenal conception. They had 
asserted the permanence of transcendental elements, 
and there was no reason but an a priori one why they 
should make transcendental organisms equally perish- 
able. They should have realized that they required 
evidence at this point. The law of inertia supports 
the permanence of everything, and it is but a form 
of the conservation of energy. It is not intrinsically 
in the nature of complex things that they shall dis- 
solve any more than it is in the nature of an ele- 
ment or an atom that it should perish. It is a ques- 
tion of fact pure and simple. All that the Epicurean 
had definite evidence for was the empirical fact that 
complex things of sense perished, not that they neces- 
sarily perished. And with this evidence went the 
fact that there was a cause for this dissolution or tran- 
sient appearance. But for the action of that cause 
even compound things would not perish. Hence the 
materialist should have observed that, if he were go- 
ing to assert the phenomenal nature of the soul, it was 
his duty to supply the same kind of evidence for this 
that he had for that of the body. But he resorted 
to a priori assumptions instead of scientific evidence. 
He distinguished between the sensible and the super- 
sensible world by making one transient and the other 
permanent, and then forgot the distinction on which 

369 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

he based this view when he came to estimate the na- 
ture of complex organisms. It was the supersensible 
that was eternal, and as he had made the soul super- 
sensible he should have seen that its permanence went 
with this, and would have done so but for the a 'priori 
assumption about the complex. It may be a fact that 
they are all perishable, but it is not a necessity. It is 
a matter of evidence, not of assumption. 

Besides, it was a purely a priori assumption that 
the soul was an organism, a complex compound of 
etherial elements. It might as well have been a 
monad, so far as the Epicureans knew. They had no 
evidence that it was a complex organism. Hence if it 
were a monad, its imperishable nature was to be placed 
on the same basis as that of the atoms. The inde- 
structibility of the atoms was an assumption without 
any special proof, a view which all will admit in this 
day since the discussion of the atomic theory and the 
new doctrine of ions and electrons. But it was not 
necessary for the believer in immortality to challenge 
the eternity of the atoms or the assumption which 
affirmed it, as he could simply demand evidence for 
the complexity of the soul and in lieu of finding it as- 
sume with equal propriety its simplicity and affirm 
its persistence on the same basis as that of the ele- 
ments. 

On the philosophic side, Christianity would have 
had the alternatives of holding that the soul was sim- 
ple and indestructible or that its mere complexity did 
not insure its destruction. Tertullian seized upon its 
simplicity and its material nature as an ad hominem 
argument which the materialist could not resist. But 

370 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

he lacked evidence for the simplicity of the soul and 
other philosophic views had become so infected with 
the opposition between matter and spirit that they 
could not accept the material nature of the soul, even 
if it afforded a vantage ground in the argument. 
But we anticipate the real attack of Christianity on 
materialism by referring to Tertullian, as he came 
long after that religion had gained its position. The 
real attack on materialism was not philosophical, but 
an appeal to a fact, or an alleged fact. This was 
the story of the resurrection. 

Materialism had saturated thought with the belief 
that even if the soul existed it did not survive the 
grave. Philosophy had shown itself incapable of 
solving the riddle, and left to the gatherer of evidence 
the duty or the opportunity to assert what material- 
ism denied. It was no philosophic time when the re- 
vival of the belief in immortality arose. There was 
no disposition to debate the issue on assumptions which 
could well demand evidence for their making on both 
sides of the the controversy. Hence instead of rely- 
ing on the argument that the doctrine of inertia fav- 
ored the continuity of the soul, the new movement fell 
back on an alleged fact to support its contention 
against materialism. It did not challenge the mate- 
rialist for evidence that complex organisms perish, 
but undertook directly the support of its own con- 
tention that the soul did rise from the grave. 

Ancient thought would naturally enough suppose 
that the fine material organism, which existed as the 
soul in association with the body would fare the same 
destiny. The very assumption that it was matter, and 

371 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

complex matter at that, would incline it in that direc- 
tion, while the various traditions of popular religion 
and its theory of Hades left the soul to follow the 
course of the body. But as Greek thought had al- 
ways taken the view of gravity which held that light 
substances rose and heavy ones fell, it was easy to con- 
struct a theory of a resurrection before any alleged 
facts occurred to justify its assertion, and in fact 
such a theory existed before it was alleged of Christ. 
The controversy between the Pharisees and Sadducees 
is absolute proof of this. It may be doubtful if the 
mere philosophic theory had suggested any such view, 
but when suggested, philosophy might well harbor it 
as consistent with its general conceptions. It is far 
more probable that the belief in apparitions had sug- 
gested the mode of attack on materialism, as even the 
Epicureans admitted the existence of such phenomena, 
and Epicureans admitted the existence of the gods 
on the evidence of dreams. It is hardly possible that 
the dispute between the two dominant sects of Pales- 
tine grew out of a philosophic controversy based on a 
thorough acquaintance with Greek thought. It is 
more probable that the intellectual atmosphere was 
saturated with its general ideas and certain actual ex- 
periences which sought cover in sectarian theories, and 
the belief in apparitions in all ages would very natur- 
ally suggest that conception of things which the story 
of the resurrection illustrates, and especially in the 
crisis of ancient materialism, surrounded as it was by 
the assumptions which I have explained. Hence we 
may suppose that Christianity arose to the challenge 
for evidence of survival which the belief in apparitions 

Q12 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

easily suggested. It was not a philosophy, but an 
appeal to alleged facts, which, accepting their appar- 
ent character, directly disproved the a priori assertion 
of the Epicurean. 

The mind of the time was prepared for the recog- 
nition of phenomena which would suggest just what 
the anti-materialist wanted in his support. We have 
only to suppose that an apparition of Christ appeared 
to his disciples after his death and we should have all 
the conditions which would supply a reply to the 
claims of materialism. The appearance of such a per- 
sonality would have an unusual influence, more than 
any average person, and it would suggest a triumph- 
ant answer to scepticism, as we know the story ac- 
tually took that character. It would constitute an ex- 
ception to the assertions that survival was impossible. 
All that the advocate would have to say was that it 
was not a question of what was possible or impossible, 
but of what the facts were, attested as they apparently 
were in this case by collective testimony. Materialism 
asserted that a resurrection, the survival of the ethe- 
rial organism, the Pauline spiritual body, or the as- 
tral of the theosophist, was impossible. The Chris- 
tian believer simply pointed to a case of it in fact 
and asked the Epicurean to explain it on any other 
than the most natural hypothesis. The repetition of 
such phenomena would add strength to the influence 
of the first one and awakened a new interest which 
materialism would not be able to withstand. 

I am not claiming that there was an actual appari- 
tion of Christ at the time. I am only saying that, 
in the sceptical situation about the resurrection of 

373 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

the physical body, we can most easily explain the con- 
sensus of testimony in the matter by supposing that 
an apparition occurred, whatever source we gave to 
the apparition. We may treat it as an hallucination, 
if we prefer, as Renan actually did, and as physiol- 
ogists and psychiatrists now do, where they do not 
consider it a myth. I am not concerned at present in 
the question whether the apparition was real or hallu- 
cinatory. The experience of the human race makes 
the phenomenon, whatever its cause, a frequent and 
familiar one, and we need not enter into criticism of 
the story when estimating its effect on belief, philo- 
sophical and otherwise. It is sufficient to believe a 
thing to make it a potent factor in intellectual con- 
structions, and there can hardly be a doubt that the 
early Christians believed in the occurrence of some 
appearance, subjective and hallucinatory or real, at 
the time of the crucifixion, and that belief was in an 
alleged fact which, if real, clearly contradicted the 
conceptions of the materialist. 

That the phenomena which have characterized the 
field of psychic research are not new and that they 
were associated with the allegations of the resurrection 
of Christ are apparent in other statements of the 
New Testament. There is the story of the apparition 
of Moses and Elias on the mount. We may not 
credit such a story as a fact. But it makes no differ- 
ence. The record of it shows that people believed in 
such things, at least to some extent. It may have 
been, like many other similar incidents, a mere myth, 
but its assertion indicates what the mind was accredit- 
ing in the field of the apparently superphysical. 

374 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

Then again we have the instance of the disciples aware 
of Christ's presence with them on the way to Em- 
maus. He was not distinctly recognized at first, but 
seemed like one of those instances with which psychic 
researchers are now so familiar, namely, the phenom- 
ena in which some people seem to be conscious of an 
independent presence, though nothing sensible is rec- 
ognized. These too may be hallucinations, but they 
are experiences, and it would be natural for unscien- 
tific times to accept them at their face value and to 
base a philosophy or a religion upon them. 

St. Paul's vision on the way to Damascus, the 
" speaking with tongues " on the day of Pentecost, 
the command to " try the spirits and see whether they 
were of God or not," were all phenomena with which 
we are perfectly familiar to-day, whether of the na- 
ture of hallucinations or indicative of transcendental 
realities. It would only be natural to expect an ap- 
parition of Christ on any theory of the facts, so far 
as any such event can be expected at all, and certainly 
its occurrence to people of that time would offer the 
best of opportunities to challenge materialism. The 
phenomenon would, if real, be a clear disproof of the 
materialist claim that the etherial organism perished 
with the body. That idea once accepted would af- 
ford a rallying point for all the forces which mate- 
rialism had kept in submission. Such it was at that 
time for any one who knows history. The despair 
of those who had felt the weight of doubt was at once 
turned into joy and a new enthusiasm given to the 
ethical and religious consciousness. 

The whole movement of Neo-Platonism was deeply 
375 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

associated with these phenomena. The orthodox his- 
torian of philosophy knows well the stories of the 
trances of Plotinus, and all are familiar with the 
magic and theurgy connected with that philosophy, 
and it seems to have escaped the repute attaching to 
similar associations in modern times. We have long 
since separated philosophic pursuits from dabbling 
in magic and prestidigitation, and these may not have 
infected Neo-Platonism in its early stages. But 
whether they did or not, the work of Plotinus and 
his followers is evidence of an attempt to solve the 
riddle of the sphinx by other than introspective meth- 
ods in spite of an exaggerated use of them. Simon 
Magus, of the New Testament, is probably a type 
of the frauds which arose during the decline of the 
oracles. Bishop Hippolytos, in his Refutatio Herce- 
sium, shows what the situation was in some minds, 
whether he was correct in his judgment or not. He 
seems to have attacked the oracles as unqualifiedly 
fraudulent. Plutarch, who was a young man in 66 
A. D., wrote on the cessation of the oracles in his time 
in a spirit which indicates familiarity with genuine 
phenomena of an interesting type, the inexplicable to 
him and others. All these show what the materialistic 
spirit has challenged and produced by way of refuta- 
tion, and this regardless of the merits of the case. 
Hence the stories in the New Testament but reflect 
the conceptions of the time, namely, phenomena less 
exceptional than popular belief in miracles would im- 
ply- 

With this intellectual atmosphere and the immemo- 
376 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

rial knowledge of apparitions, it would be natural at 
any appearance of such a phenomenon in the person 
of a teacher like Jesus, that the event would be seized 
upon as a triumphant refutation of materialism. 
Whether he did so appear or not is another question. 
The consensus of testimony would be on that side, even 
though we chose to explain the phenomenon as an hal- 
lucination. Its influence on men would not depend, 
at that time, upon its reality in fact, but upon the 
belief in that reality, and there was no antecedent 
presumption against such things, as three hundred 
years of physical science has predisposed us. It mat- 
ters not what theory we adopt of the event character- 
ized as the resurrection, its influence as a belief in a 
fact was sufficient to revolutionize philosophic thought. 
It could do this all the more effectively from the fact 
that men's conception of matter and spirit were not 
then as clearly distinguished as to-day. The monis- 
tic temper of philosophic thought allowed the distinc- 
tion between grosser matter and spirit to be lightly 
drawn, the latter being only a finer type of the for- 
mer. The bodily resurrection might be taken to refer 
to the " spiritual " body, which was matter of one 
kind, and when the antithesis between matter and 
spirit became more clearly defined the very phrase 
" bodily " resurrection would naturally imply the 
grosser body. This development might easily take 
place among the common people who had no philoso- 
phic ideas of a monistic sort and who more naturally 
distinguished between " matter " and " spirit," while 
they remained by the sensory interpretation of the 

377 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

" physical body " associated with the resurrection. 
As time passed this view would crystallize into per- 
fectly definite form, as it did. 

But the real phenomena, whatever their explana- 
tion, seem to have persisted, though the weight of 
scientific authority for many centuries kept their rel- 
evance unnoticed or suppressed their importance in the 
interest of a materialistic philosophy. The assets 
of history were not sufficient to counteract this ten- 
dency, and as science triumphed over ancient meth- 
ods, it left no appeal to facts that seemed impressive 
in such a problem. Science is an interrogation of the 
present for the facts that enable us to read the past 
and the future. If I may so express it, science is 
an examination of a cross section of evolution and 
expects to find there the evidence of what has occurred 
and of what will occur, the indicia of history and 
hope. As long as it discredited psychic phenomena 
it had no alternative to its materialistic interpretation. 
It was natural and legitimate as method that it 
should do so, and hence the stories of apparitions re- 
ceived no attention but to be discarded as coincidences 
and hallucinations. Whether they can always be so 
considered is for each individual to determine on the 
evidence. 

But one thing the Society for Psychical Research 
has proved beyond cavil is the fact that apparitions 
do occur. We need not care what explanation offers 
itself. They are facts of human experience, whether 
products of a disordered brain or of external agencies 
of a human type surviving death. In the present 
stage of inquiry it is not necessary to insist which. 

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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

They are the continuation of ancient experience which 
even Tylor in his Primitive Culture admits betokens 
important facts in the lives of savages. Whether 
they are more than hallucinations will depend wholly 
upon their relation to the events they seem to attest 
and the subject's ignorance of those events. When 
an apparition of a given person is seen — whether 
living or dead makes no difference to our problem 
at present — by some one and the fact coincides with 
an important event at a distance and not known to 
the percipient, and when they occur in sufficient num- 
bers and variety to eliminate chance from their in- 
terpretation, the phenomena offer science an important 
datum for speculation. It is not the mere fact of an 
identified apparition that has value, as every man 
does know or ought to know, but the relation of it 
to the events indicated and coinciding with it as well 
as the really or apparently supernormal information 
conveyed by it, that invites attention, and any effort 
to press hallucination, which excludes external stimuli 
from the case, into service to discredit the phenome- 
non as insignificant, is an evasion of the issue. The 
man who discards the facts as hallucinations does well 
when he is estimating a single case against all real or 
supposed human experience on the negative side. 
But the multiplication of the phenomena puts them 
on the same footing with meteors and comets, and all 
other sporadic or residual facts. Their regular oc- 
currence after a definite type suggests some other law 
than hallucination, extensive as that is. The collec- 
tion of a census of such events would satisfy science 
of the need of investigation at least, and that indefi- 

379 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

nitely. Ridicule after that would only indicate the 
cries of a dying philosophy. 

Very early in its history the English Society for 
Psychical Research set about this very task. It 
planned the collection of a " Census of Hallucina- 
tions," as they were called, though distinguishing be- 
tween subjective and veridical hallucinations. The 
former type meant that they were products of ab- 
normal and intra-organic stimuli, that is, various dis- 
turbances within the organism. The latter meant 
that certain types of experience representing an ap- 
parition, whatever its form, real or symbolic, were 
related, perhaps causally to certain events independent 
of the organism in which the hallucination or appari- 
tion occurred. This last type had to be proved, but 
the coincidnce between certain alleged apparitions 
and the events which they seemed to indicate sug- 
gested such a definition upon which to work for evi- 
dence. All apparitions which occurred in connection 
with knowledge of the events to which they were re- 
lated had to be regarded as subjective, that is, mere 
productions of the brain. Abnormal psychology had 
been familiar enough with such phenomena to dis- 
credit any claims for the reality of such things unless 
they could present the credentials of supernormal phe- 
nomena. The criterion set up for the determination 
of this supernormal nature was that the apparition 
should satisfy several evidential demands. ( 1 ) They 
must coincide with some event at a distance, such as 
a death or critical illness. (2) The events which they 
seemed to indicate must not be known to the percip- 
ient, so that the information really or apparently con- 

380 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

veyed should at least seem to be supernormal. (3) 
Some record of the experience should be made before 
any knowledge of the event coinciding had been ob- 
tained. This record may be either a note made at the 
time or a statement of the facts made to some friend 
previous to other information. (4) Anxiety and ex- 
pectation regarding the person concerned must be ab- 
sent. In the absence of these standards of evidence, 
such others as would guarantee the phenomena against 
the objections of ordinary hallucination had to be 
presented before any instance could be received as sug- 
gesting an external source for its occurrence. 

The object of this inquiry was to test the sceptic's 
hypothesis of chance coincidence in the occurrence of 
apparitions related to the events which they seemed to 
identity. Instances were collected over a definite ter- 
ritory representing apparitions of dying and deceased 
persons. The time limit was arbitrarily fixed at 
twelve hours after the moment supposed to mark 
physiological death. Within the territory assigned 
they obtained 350 cases which seemed worthy of con- 
sideration. But 270 of these were rejected from a 
scientific account because they failed to satisfy the 
rigid criteria which had been considered necessary to 
guarantee their integrity against the hypothesis of 
subjective hallucination. Then 28 more were elim- 
inated for various other reasons. This left 52 which 
satisfied the most severe tests of scientific method as to 
the probabilities of their truth. By mathematical 
methods which it is not necessary to explain here, 
these 52 cases were compared with the law of chance 
and the conclusion adopted that they were not due to 

381 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

chance coincidence. This conclusion was emphasized 
by italics and it was stated that the committee re- 
garded it as a proved fact. 

It is clear that, if 52 cases were beyond chance pro- 
duction, 350 cases were much more this. No estimate 
was made for this latter number, and many more have 
been collected since. Dr. Hodgson told me before his 
death that he thought he had a thousand instances on 
record in his files, and though all of them may not 
have been equally evidential or assured by severe 
standards, the fact that veridical apparitions have 
been established would make it probable that a very 
large proportion of coincidental phenomena of the 
kind had the same character. 

The scientific acceptability of such facts to-day, 
when subjected to the scrutiny of scepticism, would 
make it entirely credible that Christ may have ap- 
peared in a similar way to his disciples, and explain a 
perfectly natural source for the story of the resurrec- 
tion, a source too that would carry with it more or less 
guarantee for the conclusion which the early Chris- 
tians had based upon the one incident. If the exam- 
ination of the present finds the phenomena credible as 
real and significant, there is no difficulty in accepting 
the credibility of it in the past, which we know to be 
full of assertions of it. Of course, each instance of 
alleged appearance must be submitted to the evidential 
test and credited or rejected accordingly. But when 
the fact of apparitions has been once established scien- 
tifically the ancient allegations of them are less in- 
credible than they would otherwise be. This is a tru- 
ism. But it is mentioned in order to connect the ac- 

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PSYCHICAL, RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

ceptability of the present with the possibility of the 
past and to make the past a part of the present in 
the interpretation of its nature and tendencies. This 
does not prove the truth of the story of the resurrec- 
tion of Christ, but it does remove its supposed con- 
tradiction with the law of nature, except in so far as 
history and tradition have interpreted it as a physi- 
cal resurrection. This must remain incredible as long 
as such phenomena are not now frequent and so long 
as human experience does not reproduce it as a law 
of nature. But the existence of veridical apparitions 
would substantiate all that is useful in the story of 
the resurrection and make human experience in all 
ages akin. The same opposition to the materialistic 
view of things comes from these experiences as in an- 
tiquity. Thinkers may entertain what view they 
please of them. They certainly offer to many minds 
an escape from the dogmatism of doubt. It may 
take long to assure ourselves generally of the truth 
involved, but whether it does or not, it is certain that 
we find a new point of view for interpreting the New 
Testament. That this is coming is apparent in the 
asserted views of leading men like Newman Smyth and 
others. It will probably not be through public recog- 
nition of psychic research, but by covert admission of 
its conclusions and the method of reinterpreting the 
record of antiquity under the aegis of authority. But 
it matters not to science how men come to its accep- 
tance, so that they do come, and if we make the res- 
urrection a law of nature, sporadic it is true, we have 
done all that is necessary to protect the ethical and re- 
ligious view of life. 

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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

It is important, however, to remind the reader that 
this interpretation and defence of the story of the 
resurrection is not intended as a protection to any of 
the dogmas and authority which have so long kept 
men in bondage. It is not so important to say that 
the past was right in its conceptions as it is to es- 
tablish its affinity with the present. Hence I am not 
vindicating a single one of the dogmas associated with 
a bigoted history. It is not the idea of a resurrec- 
tion, whether physical or otherwise, that is important. 
There is nothing gained by establishing a truth that 
merely enables a certain uncritical and intolerant 
class of people to say : " I told you so." It might 
be better to have a bitter scepticism in its place for 
a while. But as a reconciliation between science and 
religion, it is important to discover the significance of 
such phenomena for the beliefs of the one and the 
methods of the other. There is no use to revive old 
controversies or to vindicate old and false beliefs about 
the resurrection. No value of any sort attaches to a 
belief in it, except such as would be implied in the re- 
ality of similar phenomena now as controverting cer- 
tain philosophic theories. We may believe in a res- 
urrection as much as we please to satisfy some dogma 
or prejudice and be no wiser for the fact. But if 
there was any concealed truth in the real facts which 
tradition has covered up in the stories of the New 
Testament, it will be important as a scientific matter 
to have uncovered it, if only for the interpretation of 
history which it may afford. But there is nothing 
in the vindication of any form of the incident except 
the light which it may shed on the question of per- 

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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

sonality and its survival of death. Whatever im- 
portance men may attach to a belief in a future life 
attaches to the phenomena which I have discussed here, 
whether they are of present or past occurrence, and 
that is all that I have had in mind when discussing the 
historical view of the resurrection and in the attempted 
reconciliation of science and religion through this 
mode of approach. 

There is nothing clearer to intelligent observers than 
the fact that the older orthodox conceptions are fast 
dissolving and are bound to be supplanted by some 
others in the near future. Unless a point of view 
for the ethical consciousness can be obtained we shall 
have nothing in the common mind to which to anchor 
except the instincts which are themselves perfectly 
modifiable and submissive to environment. If this 
be agnostic and irreligious, the morality which has 
been the product of association with Christian ideas 
of life will go the way of all social customs which 
have no vindication in the nature of things. What 
the immortality of the soul did for the past was that 
it protected certain views of the present life and their 
importance, no matter whether these views should have 
had their own intrinsic value apart from artificial de- 
fence. When this is the fact, we know perfectly well 
that the system will perish with the doctrine and con- 
ceptions which gave it vitality and cohesion. That 
at least is the value which attaches to the proof of a 
future life for man. Greco-Roman history shows 
this. As soon as ancient religions lost their vitality 
as aids to political life the morality which they fos- 
tered disintegrated, and they lost their vitality because 

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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

they could not sustain their truth under the light of 
inquiry. Philosophy dissolved their grounds and 
left them no heritage of truth which would enable 
them to survive the corrosive influence of scepticism. 
It will be the same with Christianity unless it can ad- 
just itself to the scientific point of view and unless 
science can supply data for some form of idealism. 

In defending the great importance attaching to the 
belief in a future life I am going first to make a con- 
cession to certain types of mind. There are many 
who think that the belief has been actually harmful to 
progress. There are many others who think it a matter 
of indifference to mankind and wholly unnecessary to 
ethics or religion. Some maintain that ethical ideals 
are sufficiently evident of themselves and that no harm 
can come to them by complete ignorance or even by 
denial of a life beyond the grave. There is a still 
larger class that is indifferent intellectually and mor- 
ally to the whole question and the implications said to 
be based upon it. They are quite content with the 
present existence and the risks and fortunes which ac- 
company it. It seems that only a few are interested 
in the protection of the belief for impersonal reasons, 
the majority being emotionally and perhaps often 
selfishly concerned in it. 

I must, however, remind the sceptic who think ethics 
safe without such belief and that moral instincts can 
be trusted to take care of themselves, that he neglects 
to reckon with the perfectly established fact that mo- 
rality is no more stable than the intellectual beliefs 
upon which it is founded. History has demonstrated 
this beyond a doubt. The only question to be de- 

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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

termined is whether the immortality of the soul has 
ever influenced any ethical system. Those who think 
ethics safe without it forget that the very ideals which 
they accept are the product of the system which ob- 
tained its strength from this very belief. It is clear 
to all intelligent people that the ancient morality dis- 
appeared with the prevalence of materialism. Its 
dissolution began with the disintegrating influence of 
the Sophists and ended in the debaucheries of the 
Roman Empire. It was a matter of slow growth, and 
would have been more rapid but for the preservation 
among common people of beliefs long after the gov- 
erning classes gave them up. This is apparent in 
the epitaphs of ancient tombs. And it was slow then 
because the solidarity of communities was not such as 
it is now. Religious tolerance was more necessary 
then to protect the state than now, and as the politi- 
cal classes were the materialists their protection lay 
in tolerating religion while they collected the revenues. 
But as soon as Paganism lost its hold on the allegiance 
of the common people the morality which it fostered 
declined rapidly enough. Its place was taken by the 
reconstructive ideas of Christianity. We may say 
and think what we please about these ideas, they 
moulded a new civilization. There were many things 
in the system besides the belief in a future life which 
gave it power, but this belief was the primary factor 
which protected the influence of what had been asso- 
ciated with it. For instance the doctrine of limited 
probation and of eternal punishment. Neither of 
these could have maintained itself for a moment with- 
out the belief in a future life. But they were potent 

387 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

factors in determining the power of the priesthood 
over the masses. The morality which we regard as 
sustaining the present family and political life came 
from this growth and will dissolve with the beliefs that 
determined it. This morality is slower to perish than 
the intellectual beliefs affecting it, because men ad- 
just themselves to environment in their actions when 
they do not in their convictions. But in time the en- 
vironment is changed and with it the protective agency 
for its old morality. 

It is true enough that many persons do not need 
the belief for its influence on certain specific maxims 
of conduct, because a variety of forces combine to 
preserve the integrity of some principles. But in the 
long run the most powerful agents in securing the 
cohesiveness of the best principles of conduct are those 
which give the greatest tenacity to maxims affected 
by time. Environment, example, tradition, personal 
affection, heredity, political and social restraints, and 
a thousand interests will avail to preserve for a while 
certain habits of thought and action without a belief 
in a future life. But they do not suffice to create an 
ethical system which will make the individual sacrifice 
the present to the future, which is always necessary 
for the highest ideals, at least in some measure of 
their realization. The sceptic who speaks so confi- 
dently of our present moral agencies forgets their 
parentage and that they are living on the momentum 
of eighteen centuries of the tremendous religious and 
political power which did so much to displace Pagan- 
ism. That momentum will spend itself unless rein- 
forced from time to time with the primary motives 

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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

which gave it impulse. Our ethics to-day are the off- 
spring of ideals which got their whole impetus and 
animation from the enthusiasm of immortality. The 
New Testament records the exultant triumph of the 
poor in the consciousness of immortality as against 
the teaching of materialism. They felt both political 
and moral oppression, but the hope of a future life 
dispelled the burdens of political tyranny and enlisted 
nature on their side when this life came to an end. 
They may have been and may be entitled to better 
treatment in the present, but the inequalities of nature 
and society are less when nature shows itself in con- 
tinued opportunities for life and work, as it does in 
the doctrine of a future existence for the soul. It 
was hardly an accident that associated human broth- 
erhood with the belief. Unfortunately the social sys- 
tem of the early period did not favor either voluntary 
or compulsory adjustment to this ideal, and it van- 
ished, to be practically forgotten by the church alto- 
gether, though its teaching preserved the maxims 
which made it imperative. In supporting and pre- 
serving the value of the individual against the impe- 
rialism of politics and the materialism of philosophy 
it had, or seemed to have, a sufficient task. Now that 
the church makes no effort to realize human brother- 
hood, this ideal of its early history survives in the 
doctrine of socialism, while the efforts to realize what 
human brotherhood might effect are inspired by eco- 
nomic instead of ethical methods, by materialistic in- 
stead of religious conceptions. And religion itself 
is fast losing its hold on the first and the last belief 
which gave it potency and enthusiasm. The revival 

389 



PSYCHICAL, RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

of both its social and ethical functions will fall to 
science, unless it quickly assumes the offensive in the 
fundamental ideas which gave it birth. 

I quite agree that it is not the mere belief in a 
future existence that will regenerate either the indi- 
vidual or society. This is adequately proved by the 
lives of savages, and by other forms of social organi- 
zation. It is well enough illustrated in the history 
of modern spiritualism. But I am not contending 
that its value lies merely in its being believed. Nor 
do I expect the belief alone to animate every one 
at once with the highest ideals of life. I am not de- 
fending its importance on the assumption that men 
and women have only to be convinced of it to become 
angelic. I know too well that it requires much more 
to bring about such a change in man individually and 
socially. But it nevertheless is the most important 
factor in the protection of such virtues as can effect 
this result in the long run. The morality of the pres- 
ent moment often makes itself felt without incentives 
borrowed from the future. But there is a point where 
men cannot be induced to sacrifice the present to the 
future unless the latter be guaranteed. 

The principle which I am defending here is per- 
fectly apparent in all the morality of the present life 
regardless of the immortality of the soul. All that 
the idea of a future life does is to say that the line 
affecting conduct is not drawn at the grave. It ex- 
tends the place of time in thought and action. All 
sound ethics recognizes time in the application of its 
maxims. It is always teaching the importance of sac- 

390 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

rificing the present moment to a distant one. The 
doctrine of " enlightened self-interest " always empha- 
sizes the idea of rewards for resisting present impulse 
in the expectation of later compensation. The man 
who thinks of the consequences to-morrow and gives 
up the pleasure of to-day is always regarded the 
wiser. We are in no case the best for taking the 
present moment on the wing and ignoring the next. 
It is the same in our economic life. We always re- 
gard the future in the rate of profit and interest. 
The less the risk the less the rate of interest. The 
surer the investment the less the profit expected or 
desired. Time is thus a primary factor in both our 
ethical and economic conduct. In all maxims of life 
this element of time is one of the most important, and 
there is no reason for refusing it the same importance 
for a life after death, provided that life can be as- 
sured to us. It only extends the time with which 
ethical maxims must reckon in their teaching. 

Now the belief in a future life furnishes two things 
of importance for all reflective life. The first is the 
value of human personality. That is, its permanence 
along with that of the indestructibility of matter and 
the conservation of energy. The second is the exten- 
sion of time in the estimation of ethical maxims. These 
two facts may serve as protectives to other rules of 
conduct which might not have power enough to sustain 
themselves on other grounds. It is the inner spiritual 
life that needs protection against the temptations of 
the moment, not because we may see its value, but 
because the human mind naturally tends to recognize 

391 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

the securities of the present sensory experience 
against the claims of the unassured permanence of 
any other life. 

But the point at which the belief in a future exist- 
ence becomes of the most importance is in its relation 
to what may be called the intellectual or philosophical 
systems which serve as agencies in the sustenance and 
propagation of ideals. No doubt many individuals 
in all ages, even where a future life may not be 
thought of or have any fundamental importance in the 
individual and social systems of conduct, have been 
able to attain high ideals of life without perpetually 
keeping the mind on such a belief. But a rational 
system of thought can hardly ignore its efficiency in 
moving communities to some common conception of 
duty and interest. In all ages it has been the intel- 
lectual man, the philosopher in some sense, that has 
dominated the thought of the community. In some 
sense it is the most intelligent man that governs us. 
It may be that he is most intelligent only in the ma- 
chinery of bad politics. But all depends on what 
the ideal of the community is. The man is always 
selected who represents the real or imagined interest 
of the largest number of people in the community, 
where democracy is the social system. The best man 
from other points of view may be excluded from 
recognition. But everywhere and always intelligence 
of some kind is the dominating agency in private and 
political life. If that intelligence is associated with 
a religious and ethical view of the cosmos, it inspires 
law and custom with its ideals more or less. If it be 
materialistic it recognizes unethical ideals in its policy. 

392 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

Now the immortality of the soul has always been one 
of the main stays of the religious conception of life 
and duty. It has rationalized many of the maxims 
of conduct which would hardly stand alone. What 
the teacher wants always is some premise in nature 
and fact for reinforcing the ethical maxims which 
he values. Give him an established major premise 
that protects the value of the individual and he will 
instill a community with its implications wherever he 
can get that premise admitted. No unanimous sen- 
timent can exist on any other basis. 

The intellectual classes constitute the teaching 
members of the community and they require as a con- 
dition of effectiveness that some assured fact be 
established in order to make it the fulcrum for logical 
reasoning. Men have to be influenced either by 
force or reason. In the absence of reason the 
mediasval period used persecution to create unanimity 
of sentiment and action. The conqueror has always 
subdued the intellects of his enemies as well as their 
bodies, at least subdued their influence. No com- 
munity can exist without some unanimity of belief 
and action. This common sentiment has to be 
brought about in some way, and there are only two 
ways in which it can be done. The strong may in- 
sist by force that the weaker shall submit, or they 
may reason them into voluntary agreement regard- 
ing the wiser course of action. Reason is the peace- 
ful way of obtaining unanimity of thought and ac- 
tion, force is the method of war. But the condition 
of reasoning is a major premise which no one will dis- 
pute. On that may be built a system of minor prem- 

393 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

ises which will organize a series of common beliefs 
that will determine the various actions of the com- 
munity, and this method consists with the largest 
amount of freedom for the individual, especially re- 
garding actions on which the sentiment of the com- 
munity is not agreed. 

Now men have a tendency to adopt some one ideal 
of action to which all other ends are subordinated. 
It may be wealth to which a man subordinates all 
other desires ; it may be fame and ambition to which 
he sacrifices all other impulses ; it may be knowledge ; 
it may be physical appetite ; it may be dress ; it may 
be art; it may be power; it may be religion. In all 
such cases the maxim of a man's life is to make 
everything' a means to the one chief end. What- 
ever sanctity the chief end has, it will carry with it 
that of the subordinate aims, and whatever vicious as- 
pect the chief aim has will give its character to the 
others. What is wanted, therefore, in ethics is some 
position which will enable the moralist, by rational 
methods, to give true perspective to the various pos- 
sibilities of human life. If the sensory life is the 
only one man is to have, he will naturally subordinate 
all to it ; if he is to have a supersensory life it will be 
possible to give a permanent and more exalted impor- 
tance to his inner and reflective habits, and to urge by 
reason the transcendent seriousness of taking time 
more carefully into account in the regulation of 
thought and action. The proof of a future life would 
supply the premise which would enable the intellectual 
and rationalizing mind to sustain the importance of 
the time element in the maxims of conduct and to asso- 

394 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

ciate with it all the virtues which are necessary for 
attaining the one chief end, namely, the culture which 
promises permanent interest and value. The various 
means to this one end could be more effectively sanc- 
tified and human interests unified and directed to one 
ideal. At present with the incertitude on this one 
center of gravity for human ideals, there is nothing 
to do but to leave the mind to its own liberties and 
to keep in existence a system of warring interests 
which the intelligent man cannot unify or reconcile. 
There is no sufficient premise for urging assuredly the 
importance which nature attaches to the spiritual 
ideal. Many instincts guide us rightly toward the 
correct goal, but we require in addition to this the co- 
operation of reason, of the systematizing intellect, in 
order to create by its unifying processes the unanim- 
ity of thought and sentiment that will enable the in- 
tellectual classes to rule the world again as against 
the brute force of materialism. 

It is not that men shall always be consciously look- 
ing at a future life as a condition of salvation that 
the immortality of the soul shall have its importance 
recognized, but that the assurance of it can be made 
a protection for the virtues of the present life, vir- 
tues that too often are neglected because they are 
not seen in the light of the eternal. They are sub- 
ordinated or wholly sacrificed to earthly aims alone. 
What is needed is a means for giving prominence and 
emphasis to lines of thought and action that are 
suppressed by a materialistic outlook in things. We 
may say all we please that a man's duties are in the 
present, a view which I think is entirely true. But 

395 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

as the present carries in its alembic the germs of a far 
distant future we can no more neglect that future in 
our action than we can the present. Besides, those 
duties will get their value recognized only in their 
relation to that future, if the philosophy of Immanuel 
Kant be true. But true or false, there is no more 
effective way to enable the human mind to select 
wisely the duties which shall prevail in the present 
than to assure it of the relation which they sustain 
to a remoter future, just as intelligent men take ac- 
count of the distant in their investments. It is not 
the interest of the present moment alone that the 
rational man estimates most highly. He tries to select 
from the various conflicting interests that appear be- 
fore his vision the one that runs like a golden thread 
through all the web and woof of past, present and 
future. Nor do men in their other studies of nature 
confine themselves to the mere past and present. 
Even Mr. Herbert Spencer, in spite of his agnosticism 
in all matters religious, insists that the fundamental 
test of science is prevision. A man who insists that 
it concerns itself only with the past and the present, 
with present facts and their antecedent causes, either 
narrows the functions of his inquiries or disregards 
all the human interests that make the pursuit of 
knowledge a useful affair. The self-same people 
also are always predicting, on the basis established 
by fact, the course of the future, and in fact it is the 
future in which every man lives in all his daily con- 
duct. He plans for the morrow or the next year, and 
his present gets half its joys from the hopes of the 
future in which the fruition of the present is found. 

396 



PSYCHICAL, RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

Men no more disregard the future in their lives than 
they do the past. In fact, they can well neglect 
the past altogether but for its determinative relation 
to the permanent in reality. We cannot undo the 
past, but we can prevent the future from being what 
it would be without previsionary action. The one 
important thing is to admit the place which time has 
in the determination of the most rational life and 
then to accept any fact which shows itself a part of 
the cosmic scheme in the determination of progress. 
A future life will do as much for ethics as the stabil- 
ity of an economic system will do for industrial de- 
velopment, and it is as absurd to ignore the one as it 
is the other. There is no reason for desiring sta- 
bility in economic ideals and forces that does not 
apply to ethics and the belief in a future existence 
for the soul. 

There is no belief which can be so effective in miti- 
gating the sufferings of the world as that of a future 
life. Those who have accumulated property enough 
to defy the rest of the world in their living and those 
whose salaries give them social independence may not 
see this. They can satisfy their earthly ideals with- 
out adjusting their opinions to the demands of their 
neighbors. But they have no means of answering 
the bitter queries of those who have been less suc- 
cessful and who have no circumstances to make them 
optimistic. A man with a living and his liberty and 
with no sense of obligation to the community may 
well think this world is good enough and may resolve 
to take things as they come. But in enjoying the 
share to which others may be equally entitled in the 

397 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

struggle for existence he has nothing but the im- 
munity of his position to protect him against the 
gibes and sarcasm of those who have not won a part 
of his honors and freedom. When your policy has 
been to escape responsibility for all the aspirations of 
the world and to obtain security in the pursuit of your 
own ideals, it is but natural that you would evade the 
consideration of all that humankind regards as valu- 
able, and the penalty in the end will be the contempt 
of those whose interests and ideals you despise. When 
they come into their power they will have their re- 
venge. If the intellectual classes who are endowed 
with the duties of the world's teachers do not assume 
to guide them in the great questions that affect their 
ethical lives, but sit in aristocratic contempt of the 
hopes and ideals that have dominated history, they 
will find their mission supplanted. If philosophy 
cannot condescend to help the multitudes with a gos- 
pel that moves life at its foundations, it must go the 
way of all useless doctrines. The practical man 
wants assurance as to the meaning of this life for the 
individual and unless the academic man can give him 
this he will seek his information from those who 
can give it. It is not that philosophy needs always 
to be harping on the destiny of the soul, but that it 
needs to buttress up practical ethics by their relation 
to a future which makes the present its servant or 
which protects the earnest mind in its desire to justify 
its ideals. 

It was but yesterday that I overheard a man on the 
train say, pointing to a sister of charity, " If there 

398 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

is any heaven, she will get there. She sacrifices her 
life to that work." The man himself was one of 
these eupeptic specimens who evidently like the 
physical life and was not disposed to make any sac- 
rifices to what he regarded as doubtful. To him the 
future life was a risk not worth taking into account. 
But he could recognize the merit of virtue and the 
deserts which it brought with it. To him, as to all 
who feel the strength of scepticism, life had to be 
measured in its rules by the risks involved, and a 
future life was not so certain as were the pleasures 
of this. In his choice he made for the certainties and 
shifted on nature or providence the responsibility for 
the incertitudes of existence. He felt no duty to 
act where there was no assured promise of fruition. 
He chose for what he could see, or where the risks 
seemed less than for the alternative. What is 
needed, therefore, is assurance on a belief so funda- 
mental to ethical choice. What it would do in alter- 
ing the center of gravity for human endeavor and 
patience is evident to all who have read history in- 
telligently. The thought has been well expressed 
by Mr. Stedman who has so recently passed from us. 
He, I happen to know, was interested in the work 
which investigation has undertaken in this direction, 
but could never bring himself to understand its per- 
plexities and method. But both the rational and 
emotional needs of many souls were beautifully set 
forth in the poem which I quote. The burden of 
its cry is for assurance which the idealist might use 
for redeeming the wavering mind. 

399 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

Could we but know 
The land that ends our dark uncertain travel, 
Where lie those happier rills and meadows low — 
And, if beyond the spirit's inmost cavil, 
Aught of that country could we surely know, 

Who would not go? 

Might we but hear 
The hovering angels' high imagined chorus, 
Or catch betimes, with wakeful eyes and clear, 
One radiant vista of the realm before us — 

Ah, who would fear? 

Were we quite sure 
To find the peerless friend who left us lonely, 
Or, there by some celestial stream as pure, 
To gaze in eyes that here were lovely only, 
This weary mortal coil, were we quite sure 

Who would endure? 

Perhaps " We could endure," would either express 
the poet's thought or give the Stoical touch to its 
strain and indicate the ethics which would dominate 
all life when hope would be as effective in its attitude 
toward death as it is in its influence on the efforts of 
the earthly life where some material end is its aim. 
The poet is only reflecting the feelings of all high 
souls and those who affect indifference to sentiment 
of this kind usually reserve their emotions for a 
" smoker " or a beefsteak and a glass of wine. The 
hypocrisy or ignorance of the philosopher is mani- 
fest when he exhibits a consuming passion for the 
social and material pleasures of life and affects a 
righteous contempt for emotion when it concerns the 
ideals of religion and a future life. Once he was 
supposed to help the race in guiding its emotions 

400 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

toward a right goal and so saw life in its true per- 
spective. But latterly, assuming the unbiased nature 
of doubt, he prides himself in laughing at inspiration 
and hope when they suffer at the loss of all that gave 
meaning to life and effort while he labors with all his 
might to secure the pleasures of a good table and 
social recognition without accepting any responsibil- 
ity to share human struggle and suffering. Philos- 
ophic idealism is often nothing more than contempt 
for those whom it is the business of the more success- 
ful to help. It affects to guide man into the truth 
and then shies at every form of it which promises to 
justify its own vocation, and only because it eschews 
religious emotion while it revels in the passion for 
an aristocratic life. 

It is true enough that emotion and desire do not 
and should not determine what is true, and it is the 
merit of the philosopher that he keeps a cool eye on 
the criteria of facts. But he makes an equal mis- 
take when he refuses to recognize the place of emo- 
tion in the affairs of life. No ideal is ever formed 
under any other influence. Emotion estimates or 
determines the values of life, whether they are chosen 
in material or spiritual ends. It is quite as legiti- 
mate to desire immortality as it is to desire a good 
breakfast. Whether we shall estimate one above the 
other depends on our moral perspective. No doubt 
the one can be abused as well as the other, but that 
does not prove that it can be ignored. All depends 
upon the coloring we give it in the life we wish to 
realize. We may not be able to reach all that we 
idealize, and emotion may stimulate us toward ends 

401 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

which we have no hope of attaining. But it is the 
criterion of value, as it is the satisfaction which we 
take in what we attain and strive to attain. The in- 
tellect can determine no ideal whatever. Its function 
is to decide coolly and dispassionately the means to 
an end predetermined by emotion. It is passion, if 
we may so call it, that decides the summum bonwn, 
the good to which all other aims are subordinated. 
All that the intellect, the philosopher, can do is to de- 
cide whether it is attainable or not. He cannot pro- 
nounce on its value without invoking the emotional 
nature which he affects to despise. No doubt the 
believer in a future life has too often forgotten the 
place which his faith has in sanctifying patience with 
the present, in protecting " eternal life " in the pass- 
ing moment, whatever the shadows that hover over 
it ; but in deprecating the abuse of emotion in that 
belief, we may easily fall heir to the materialism which 
it was the function of philosophy to criticize and 
modify. 

Nor am I unmindful that we may make materialism 
more of a bugbear than it is. The idealist thinks 
that it is easily refuted, when in fact, the materialism 
which has influenced really thinking men is not only 
not easily refuted, but is not the " materialism " 
which the idealist attacks. The materialism which 
serves as a useful punching bag for the idealist, and 
as a cover to conceal his indifference to the real prob- 
lems of philosophy and life, may be readily attacked, 
but that form of it which negatives the ideals of re- 
ligion will not yield to the veiled and misty equivo- 
cations of Kant and Hegel. But granting its 

402 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

strength in its most objectionable form it still carries 
with it an important lesson for the development of 
man. Its great lesson to the world is a fixed order 
of things. Idealism emphasizes freedom and vanity. 
Just as man conceives his independence of the physical 
order, he assumes to disregard its laws and seeks 
emancipation from their limitations. Nowhere was 
this more true than for those ages that made the 
world carnal while insisting that it was divine. The 
reaction against Greco-Roman materialism carried 
with it the neglect of present duties, and in the midst 
of a certain kind of humility fostered a spiritual 
pride that ignored the laws of God quite as much as 
the materialist. Man needs freedom, but not the free- 
dom from law and order. Obedience is quite as much 
a duty as commanding the services of nature. In 
emancipating himself from the tyranny of the world, 
he too often assumes an arrogance which can be cor- 
rected only by the humiliations of defeat, and ma- 
terialism has come to fix for him an order which he 
cannot defy. It is the embodiment of the idea of 
irrevocable laws, conceding no liberties except such 
as come within the limits of its unchangeable order. 
This function of its nature we do not yet see. We 
shall not see it until we find that a future life is within 
its providential scheme. In the meantime we can 
only attack its attitude toward the facts which destroy 
its denial of immortality while they leave untouched 
its real contribution to ethical thought. 

A sane philosophy is poetry or it is nothing, just 
as poetry is the philosophy of the imaginative mind, 
and each needs the other in the determination of 

403 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

human truths and worths. The story of the resur- 
rection gave rise to a philosophy which had poetry 
enough in it to give it a life of many centuries, with 
all its good and evil. Had the early philosophers 
had the critical method and the stable civilization 
to help them escape the abuses that gathered like 
moss about the incidents which gave rise to a new 
order, the conflict between science and religion might 
have been pacified long ago. The waste of passion 
and superstition might have been saved its ravages, 
and philosophy would have had no reason to vindi- 
cate itself by scepticism. But it has fallen to science 
to mediate between the agnosticism of philosophy and 
the faith of religion, and if it can find in the passing 
moment the facts which reveal the obscured meaning 
of the story of the resurrection it will subdue all the 
animosities of the ages and reconcile the passions of 
truth and hope. 

In educating me it was my father's wish that I 
should choose the ministry. He would not interfere 
with my spontaneous desires, but his disappointment 
was keen when his hopes were blasted, but he bowed 
quietly and patiently to a decision which his faith 
made him believe was providential. He never wholly 
knew the influences which determined my develop- 
ment. It was impossible to convey them to a nar- 
rower experience. The ministry had its attractions, 
but its denial of freedom and its irreconcilable atti- 
tude toward science made it impossible to stultify my 
intellect or my conscience, and destiny found a way 
to emancipate me from the priesthood of both the 
church and the university, while it kept in me the 

404 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

ideals of both. It was a long and weary struggle. 
Taste, aspirations, environment physical and social, 
education, all conspired to make the choice desirable. 
But every influence which time and circumstances con- 
jured up to decide the issue only found its specific 
aim defeated, though the fundamental tendencies of 
religious ideals did not abate their power and signifi- 
cance. Philosophy and literature poured their con- 
tents into the lap of fortune and left in their train 
the still abiding spiritualism which made life worth 
living or kept alive the faith that revelation had ob- 
scured. The works of nature appealed to me as they 
do to all who have to decide between the fictions of 
speculative philosophy and the realities of things. 
Every department of nature and human experience 
was ransacked for data to aid in the solution of this 
momentous question. 

It was in the midst of these influences that I found 
myself one autumn afternoon on a hill overlooking 
a beautiful valley. The little hamlets which were 
scattered over the landscape sent their smoke heaven- 
ward and contained the domestic peace which pioneer 
life may give. A little kirk stood in the village, 
where the rural worshippers gathered once a week to 
keep alive their faith and hopes. A mountain stream 
dashed over the rocks on its hurried course to rest in 
the sea. The flocks and herds were grazing peace- 
fully on the meadows, ignorant of the sorrows that 
fleck the little life of unhappy man in other climes. 
The sky had uncovered its expanse and opened its im- 
measurable depths to a clear vision, cooling and sub- 
lime in the reverential moods which it excited. The 

405 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

sun had driven his chariot down the western slopes of 
space and pausing on the horizon's bar threw back 
upon that autumn valley the melancholy and majestic 
gloom of twilight, the " dim religious light " of God. 
The clouds that gathered around his splendid throne 
to catch the last benediction of his radiance, linger- 
ing for a while in his gorgeous hues of red and gold, 
turned to wander down the azure blue of night in end- 
less voyage. The forests on the distant hills, mel- 
lowed by the October frosts, were waving in sad but 
beautiful luxuriance. A little cemetery lay on the 
right where the mossy dead were supposed to wait for 
the happy resurrection and where the cypress and the 
pine kept watch over the gates to immortality and 
God. Over all this a strange wind was blowing, De 
Quincy's Sarsar wind of death that might have swept 
the fields of mortality for a thousand centuries, mov- 
ing slowly and solemnly in Memnonian strains over 
the everlasting Sabbath of the grave. And there, as 
the stars broke through the crystal empyrean to 
lighten the shades of night with their natural splen- 
dor, I found myself dedicated to the work of justify- 
ing the ways of God to men. 

But scarcely had those feelings shaped themselves 
into resolution when the chilling breath of scepticism 
came to cool the ardor of my hopes. The first step 
in this direction was the discovered need for me of 
revised biblical interpretation enforced by a little sec- 
tarian controversy about amending the Constitution 
of the United States in favor of certain religious 
acknowledgments. The fatal chapter, however, fix- 
ing doubt beyond recovery was that on the Incarna- 

406 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

tion and the Resurrection in Barnes' Evidences of 
Christianity. Faith might have had its way had it 
not submitted its claims to proof. The very gibes 
of religious fanatics and cartoonists against the doc- 
trine of Darwin strengthened it in my sight, and 
every discovery of geology, of physiology, and of 
psychology pointed to only one conclusion, that of 
materialism. I accepted it, not because it was a de- 
sirable philosophy, but because the evidence of fact 
was on its side, and neither the illusions of idealism 
nor the interests of religious hope were sufficient to 
tempt me into a career of hypocrisy and cowardice. 
I had to temporize with many a situation until I could 
assure my own mind where it stood. In the pursuit 
of some final truth on which to base a life work I 
passed through all the labyrinths of philosophy, los- 
ing nothing and gaining nothing in its meshes. 
After Plato and Aristotle it seemed to lose its moor- 
ings in facts and lived on tradition and authority. 
New discoveries and reconstruction it despised as it 
would the occupation of neophytes and children. At 
last I was directed to the idealism of Kant for light 
and found there a system as helpless as it was mysti- 
fying, though it had been born in the atmosphere of 
Swedenborg's distinction between the transcendental 
and the phenomenal and of which it soon became 
ashamed. In it the bankruptcy of philosophy was 
the opportunity of science, and in a favorable, though 
accidental moment my attention was attracted by 
psychic research in which the first prospect of crucial 
facts presented itself. 

However satisfactory philosophy had been in show- 
407 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

ing that the meaning of the cosmos was to be found 
in the supersensible, whether by idealism or atomic 
materialism, the more exacting method of science, 
which had strengthened the claims of physical law 
and causes and which became the standard of truth, 
made it necessary to regard the residual phenomena 
of human experience, if only to corroborate the in- 
ferences which idealism had drawn from the normal. 
In fact, whatever the validity of the older views as 
possible constructions of the world, their probability 
was lost in the face of the certitudes of science which 
had multiplied evidence for the extension of physical 
explanations, and religion had to turn to the residual 
phenomena of life, as it had once done, to vindicate 
its aspirations and interpretation of the cosmos. It 
does not yet clearly see the direction from which its 
light is to come. But in the accumulation of facts 
within the field of supernormal phenomena I found 
the dawn of another day for an idealism that will last 
as long as scientific method can claim respect. All the 
mythical and misty past, seen in the light of a slow 
and patient evolution, assumed a new meaning, and we 
may exclaim with the first lines of Goethe's Faust: — 

Ihr naht euch wieder schwankende Gestalten ! 
Die fruh sich einst dem truben Blick gezeigt. 

Ye come again ye vanishing forms, 
That once had crossed my troubled view. 

The darkness which inhuman theories and ethical 
indifference brings to disappointment and suffering 
promises to lift in the light of those facts which estab- 
lish a link between the past and the future, holding 

408 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE RESURRECTION 

out to those who have lost in the struggle of the 
present existence the hope and the chance to recover 
the pursuit of their ideals in another life. No one 
can then censure the philosopher, if, in the hour of 
such a triumph, he looks with gratitude at the facts 
which renew his power over the world and breaks into 
the same passion as Goethe again. 

Ihr bringt mit euch die Bilder froher Tage 
Und manche liebe Schatten steigen auf; 
Gleich einer alten, halb verklungen Sage, 
Kommt erste Lieb' und Freundschaft mit hierauf. 

Ye bring with you the vision pure of happy days, 
And many lovely shadows rise upon the lea; 
And like an ancient half forgotten song, 
Ye bring my love and friendship back to me. 

There are signs enough of social and political up- 
heaval in the dissolution of the older ethical and re- 
ligious ideals and it will devolve on a new philosophy 
to aid in the reconstruction of order. The academic 
world is blind to the needs of the hour and has iso- 
lated itself in aristocratic seclusion from contact with 
the life of those who are ruling the tendencies of the 
future. It is left, as it apparently has always been, 
to the outside world to find a leaven for the regener- 
ation, and if any spiritual ideal be discovered it must 
be in the little beacon lights that shine out from the 
residual and neglected phenomena of mind which 
promise as wide an extension in psychological knowl- 
edge as the new discoveries in the material world have 
produced in physical science. History may repeat 
itself and must before the revival of ethical passion 
and religious ideals. 

409 




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